tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92096043133152506112019-09-04T03:38:09.975-07:00Journey to the golden cityVicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-25040845923116125422019-08-15T08:23:00.000-07:002019-08-15T10:05:16.101-07:00Learning to Shine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dgGfngnTa8Q/XVV4OUTBNcI/AAAAAAAAAZQ/iQu67QUVtkIVljzFkp3pdca0PpTccBZowCLcBGAs/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dgGfngnTa8Q/XVV4OUTBNcI/AAAAAAAAAZQ/iQu67QUVtkIVljzFkp3pdca0PpTccBZowCLcBGAs/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div><div style="font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This month has felt like a proper August month. Some days have been real scorchers with exceptional temperatures, we had an amazing storm, and it wouldn’t be right to have a British summer these days without some flooding. We should never under estimate the power of the weather, its tempestuous nature and ability to cause immense destruction. Then again neither should we underestimate the power in ourselves.</span></div><div style="font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We are, as humans, incredible beings, our bodies and our minds, with such great potential. Sadly, however, I truly believe we are vastly under utilising all of this. Isn’t it a known fact that we only use ten per cent of our brains? In that way we probably use even less of our hearts, especially as few people really understand its emotional power let alone the fact that “the heart's electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain” (HeartMath Institute)</span></div><div style="font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I am constantly amazed at the upside down nature of the way our minds work. As a culture we know how amazing we are. We fully believe that we are extremely sophisticated in our understanding of the world and how we utilise and control it to our advantage. And yet we also completely aware of how out of kilter we are.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I do believe that if we stopped trying to control our environment and started to collaborate with it; understand our relationship within this connection rather wanting to have a power over it, then we could exceed all our expectations.</span></div><div style="font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The archetype pertaining to this month explains it very simply. We have, at our core an intelligence, we call it gut reaction. Scientifically there has been some study into the cells in our gut being like brain cells. The Eastern traditions link this power to our solar plexus, our 'power centre’, where we can connect to a deep understanding of our purpose and place in the world. When we open this inner conversation with ourselves we gain a sense of inner strength, like the lion in the jungle, king of his domain. With this strong sense of self-worth comes the knowledge that we are totally supported by the Universal energy and have no need to prove anything to anyone else. This is because, here we discover that we are all, in ourselves, enough. The pride turns to humility when we recognise we are all the same, all kings of our own universe, working together as individuals, in a larger body or community.</span></div><div style="font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This sun-like energy is shown to us in the image of the sunflower, that comes out at this time, standing larger, taller and stronger than most other single flowers, the perfect reflection of the sun, here on Earth, shining in its own glory. This is an invitation for us all.</span></div><div style="font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Marianne Williamson said it perfectly in her book <i>A Return to Love</i> and Nelson Mandela quoted her in his inauguration speech,</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 1px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 1px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 1px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 1px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us….We are all meant to shine, as children do… And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”&nbsp;</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Now Marianne Williamson is doing just that in her presidential campaign; she is standing up and speaking her truth. It’s so powerful that much of the media in America is at a loss as to know how to deal with her. She is ahead of her time and we can only hope she will, just by her gentle ability to stand and shine, give others permission to join her in her campaign to stand for love. This might take some time to come to fruition, but I am confident that this is all about the perfect timing.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It is time to find our individual power, to stop giving it away to others who believe they have it. For it is those that assume power when they don’t understand its true meaning who then abuse that power, as it is not meant for wielding over others.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We will only be able to harness a new way of being when we free ourselves from the bonds of self-created slavery, stop giving our power to those we think know better or we believe have claimed their right to it.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It is time to make a stand, reclaim our rights as equals and remember exactly who we are.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We are here to shine.</span></div><div><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div><br />Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-29988784839485728712019-07-15T15:02:00.001-07:002019-07-15T15:02:57.483-07:00Journey to the golden city: Going Home<a href="https://journeytothegoldencity.blogspot.com/2019/07/going-home.html?spref=bl">Journey to the golden city: Going Home</a>: This month we are slipping into the ‘sweet spot’ of the summer and slowing our step as we feel the sun grind to a halt at the summer sol...Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-67010029658973967862019-07-12T09:25:00.001-07:002019-07-12T10:38:32.486-07:00Going Home<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QZIsu35al8o/XSi0LpJCmxI/AAAAAAAAAY4/_TmL_Q0FPW45l4vuOk_z-wmyy7_EGaBMwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_0125.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QZIsu35al8o/XSi0LpJCmxI/AAAAAAAAAY4/_TmL_Q0FPW45l4vuOk_z-wmyy7_EGaBMwCLcBGAs/s320/DSC_0125.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This month we are slipping into the ‘sweet spot’ of the summer and slowing our step as we feel the sun grind to a halt at the summer solstice (sol-stice meaning sun stands still) and turns itself around. This heralds the shortening of the days and longer nights to come.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The solstice invites us to celebrate and value all that we are in this moment and asks us to remember who we are and where we came from. We are the sum total of all those who have come before us and I wonder what we have to show for it?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It is my belief that we learn far more from listening to our elders than by breaking away and forging new paths. The only reason, in my view,&nbsp; this might not seem such a great idea, is because as we have not listened to our elders for so many generations, there is the illusion that the wisdom has run dry.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It seems that communities around the Earth who still hold their elders in esteem, have remained steeped in their spiritual beliefs. They have emotional wisdom woven into the very core of their essential ways of being; whereas I feel that we only inherit knowledge rather than wisdom.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I have long held the belief that anyone, born into the culture of the Abrahamic religions, who is seeking a spiritual path elsewhere, will eventually have to come home. This has been my personal realisation and was delighted to hear recently that the Dalai Lama has said something similar.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I remember talking to a friend, born of Christian parents, about the idea that Krishna, whom he had been seeking for so many years, is simply the same God appearing in the Eastern culture under a slightly different pseudonym. If he is to make peace with himself he will have to heal the rift between himself and his Christian parents that sent him on this pilgrimage in the first place. That is the story of the Alchemist, who journeys to find that what he was seeking was waiting for him at home all the time. He would only discover this when he is was ready to return for it. That thing is, of course, love, of the most unconditional kind.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">For me, the rift isn’t between ourselves and our parents but the what the religion has done to our understanding of God. I do believe there is a vast gap between Christ and the religion we now call Christianity and healing this divide is the imperative.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The Cancerian crab, with his hard shell exterior and soft under belly, is inviting us to choose, to use the shell as a barrier between ourselves and our feelings or to go to that vulnerable place and do the work. Sadly, the latter, which is the most needed and what we will eventually discover is the gold, is the least trodden path.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It seems to me that what we fail to reconcile, the pain that we carry down through the generations, causes us to reenact the story over and over again. We try to cover up this pain and protect ourselves with a hardening of our hearts, creating divisions within, between ourselves and our own innate ability to love.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This shows up as our society starts to break down and compartmentalises. We see the division in our families as we disengage, with extended families breaking down to such an extent that single parent families appear to be normal. We have also experienced the break down of our spiritual journey from one holistic expression of God, even though he might have many different faces, to a completely divided church, with new denominations springing up with each new age.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I believe it started with Cain and Abel. When (and of course I am talking metaphorically) Adam and Eve were thrown out the Garden of Eden, thinking it was a judgement of their wrong doing, it created a judgement of our head over our hearts. This was played out as sibling rivalry in the extreme and has run like a river all the way down through the millennia, till this time.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I believe, this is actually just our path around the galaxy, the human race as a whole on the Alchemist’s five thousand (or even twenty-six thousand) year journey, physically moving away and returning to the vibration that is God.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It is time and we are now being asked to choose to turn around, to find our power and recognise that it lies where we might least expect it. It lies in our vulnerability where, just like the sun that can change direction, we can discover and truly feel love and come home.</span></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(29, 34, 40); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The question is, are you willing to forgive yourself and all those who have come before you? If we all, or at least enough of us to create a tipping point, said ‘yes’, I believe we would change this world over night.</span></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-23902904073674847952019-06-14T15:04:00.000-07:002019-06-14T15:04:11.509-07:00Letting the Jester In?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KYS0f5DNheY/XQQZqK3pwXI/AAAAAAAAAYk/wUpGDPSZCcwStNXb6JgoWnHHCATO4nVegCLcBGAs/s1600/The-Laughing-Jester.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="499" height="261" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KYS0f5DNheY/XQQZqK3pwXI/AAAAAAAAAYk/wUpGDPSZCcwStNXb6JgoWnHHCATO4nVegCLcBGAs/s320/The-Laughing-Jester.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Thank goodness its summer, now we can all bask in the long summer days and enjoy the fruits of nature’s banquet. I am not usually one for sarcasm but what has happened to our weather?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Luckily for us, we are have been very slow to feel the effects of any issues in our weather system or even any effects of our lifestyle. I am certainly not complaining. We are not feeling the waters rising over our land, violent tsunamis wreck our homes, or the catastrophic effects of nuclear disasters, as so many have already endured. So any subtle changes in our lives are not as yet calling us to action. What will it take to choose change?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The archetype that we can choose to connect with at this time of year is Mercury, the winged messenger. He is also the trickster. The archetype is alive and kicking in many older traditions, particularly the first nation peoples of America. However, sadly he has been lost in our culture today.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">To immediately contradict myself, I can also see that he is emerging in unusual ways. When we had our general elections in 2010 and Cameron and Clegg created their coalition, I almost did a double-take as the Gemini twins appeared on the TV screen. It did not escape me that these two were also born in the same Chinese calendar year, twins indeed. It reminded me of how our political system is riddled with liars and tricksters.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It didn’t take long for America to find the jester in their culture to find his way to the top. This new president is a shining example of what happens when we install in our youth, the rhetoric that you can achieve anything you want. When we disregard the consequences, and put personal desires over the good of the country we find we have placed a Homer Simpson style mindset in the driving seat.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Now in our constant desire to follow America, like an anxious puppy, we too are putting a jester in the leading role. Here again we have the twins, I can’t believe they look alike as well, just like Cameron and Clegg, waving at each other across the pond. Of course many of us saw this coming but to see it actually playing out for real has to be the biggest joke we can play on ourselves.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I always like to see the opportunity in every situation. I have also felt that when we stop taking ourselves too seriously, stop thinking we’re the best and most important in the world, then we will start to grow up as a nation. Maybe this is our chance. Like the bully who thinks everyone likes them, we may have to sink to the lowest point, go through our own dark night of the soul to come through this smiling.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I have spoken before about being open to change, as change is the only thing that can be relied on. We would do well to first make an internal shift. If enough people can do this, and often the shift can be very subtle, the external changes can be much easier and so far more dynamic.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I heard two stories recently. The first story, which I first heard in my junior school assembly, was about the difference between heaven and hell and how they initially appear the same. We are given a vision of a great banquet with spoons that are far too long to manoeuvre and eat with. In hell everyone is starving but in heaven everyone is helping each other by feeding each other and so well fed and content.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">In the second story it was revealed to me how people are feeling that they are being controlled and enslaved in poverty by the principles of globalisation, free trade and open borders which they are told will prevent us from keeping our sovereignty and sense of national identity. This, naturally, frightens people into losing their usual generosity of spirit and creates a narrowing of the mind.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">However, it is only a story. For me, the notion of globalisation and open borders tells a tale that frees ourselves from limitations, enriching our society and strengthening our sense of self and individuality.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I find it fascinating how one story, or image, can open up completely opposing emotions depending on your standpoint. The difference of a fear based view point rather than an open-hearted can turn a vision of heaven into a hell. At the moment we live in a world where both perspectives exist and also the effects of both. How should we mind the gap, walk from a state where fear seems to carry more energy than love and turn it on its head? That is for us to explore. It is an unknown but I don’t believe it is unknowable.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">What is needed here is a revisioning of our future by re-examining our history. If we want to make positive changes it is important to understand and recognise our wealth and strengths rather than seeing only our weakness and lack. We might do well to listen to the ones who are playing the role of the trickster for us so we can choose to see through the fake news and find our own truth. That’s what this archetype is really trying to show us. When we listen to the still voice within and stop listening those who are trying to keep us undermined and living in the small version of our potential, then we can start choosing positive change.</span></div><br />Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-63592602246553837382019-05-14T13:12:00.001-07:002019-05-14T13:12:07.759-07:00The Turning of the Tide<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-blZtOGV_wj4/XNsgW1Ls2dI/AAAAAAAAAX8/nfQVWlxYTcgTz-vskjEcf1XXVEipdogiQCLcBGAs/s1600/Turning%2Bof%2Bthe%2BTide%2Bblog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="867" data-original-width="1300" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-blZtOGV_wj4/XNsgW1Ls2dI/AAAAAAAAAX8/nfQVWlxYTcgTz-vskjEcf1XXVEipdogiQCLcBGAs/s320/Turning%2Bof%2Bthe%2BTide%2Bblog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Imagine if tomorrow everyone woke up remembering that our individual responsibility is not just for ourselves but for our whole community, and that our community and the way we live has an impact far beyond the reaches of our towns, cities an even our nation. What if we felt not only responsible for ourselves as a global community but that this responsibility extended to the environment knowing that we are a part of it and an intrinsic part at that.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This is the basic premise on which I wish to base my project that I have called PIPPA (People in Positive Politics Association). When I asked somebody if they might be interested in supporting me, they told me they weren’t really interested in politics, only in supporting their community. This shows me how much our system is broken; that the two have become so separate and our politics in such disarray, people don’t feel it has a place their community any more.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Actually it cannot be separated, politics is how we organise our society, but party politics has forgotten that. I feel the ‘party’ is well and truly over. It is time to grow up and take stock. I am not saying that everyone in the party political system has lost their way, I am saying that the system is out of date and so the people trying to do good from within it, are being stifled by it. I believe it’s time to break free.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">As information becomes ever more available to all we would do well to remember that although knowledge is vital, how we use it is key and that requires wisdom. I am not convinced our political system reflects this.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There are people who have lived on our planet for eons sustainably and respectfully. They understand that the Earth has its own innate wisdom, greater and more complex than anything we can understand in our minds. We have not only forgotten the ethos these people uphold but have completely devalued them as a race at best and annihilated them at worst.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I believe that now is the time to look to this wisdom and be prepared to learn from them. But I also believe that is still a wisdom we know. For some it has become clear again, but others may have to dig deep as it has become buried beneath what our society has pushed on us for centuries.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Every moment in our lives is the sum total of all that has been before it but never has this felt more&nbsp;poignant than now. As I sense the tide is finally beginning to turn, I know I am not alone when I say that I have been waiting for this for many years,</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">As events grew in intensity over the last month, the peaceful rebellion that descended on London, but also all around the world, marked a significant moment of change. Extinction Rebellion might have grown out of nowhere but the energy behind it has been building for years. With the tragic loss of the Ecocide warrior Polly Higgins the metaphorical baton seemed to be almost immediately passed to the young Greta Thunberg. She took this on, along with the political elite of the country, completely in her stride. She has set a new standard showing us how the everyman/woman can be politically engaged.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">However, talk is cheap. How can we really start to turn our ship around, look the pollution of our waters, the devastation of our rainforests, the melting of our ice-caps squarely in the face and choose change?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This will not happen by simply passing a few laws, a few companies divesting from the use of fossil fuels and a few less plastic bags being thrown away. This runs deep. We have to reinvent ourselves and our relationship to our beautiful Earth.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Six years ago a young South American fourteen year old boy went to talk to the UN. The message he brought was not that we had to save the Earth but that we need to save ourselves. This sage would have to wait some years for his wisdom to be heard.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Change can only come when enough energy has been generated and there is a critical mass, enough of a shift in people’s hearts, for it not to be met with resistance. When we truly understand our role here, find the humility needed, we will remember that we are a cog in a wheel of a mechanism that only works when it is in balance.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I am the eternal optimist, ever confident that we will find our way, but how we get there, how we bridge the gap is the unknown, the challenging but interesting aspect of the journey. Awareness and respect for everyone, starting with oneself feels like a good starting point and my book of the month, Bergman’s <i>Utopia For Realists,</i> has been mind expanding for me. He talks of all the various studies on poverty that have already been carried out and almost implemented. Knowing that we could have been living in a completely different landscape, an alternative reality, had they been brought in, intrigues me.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It is clear that keeping people in wealth and good health costs far less than allowing people to slip into the terrible states that poverty creates. The costs to the state become huge in policing, hospitals and prisons. It is important to remember that the mental anguish is not limited purely to all those concerned here but to society as a whole. This is not only immeasurable in terms of the suffering felt and so beyond financial evaluation. Even more ironic is the fact that the rich suffer more emotionally too.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I can only ask, when are we going to realise that we don’t have to continue like this? When are we going to stop under valuing ourselves as a community and start thinking big, thinking collectively and open-heartedly?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(1, 113, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #017100; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-80731655811777873162019-04-08T08:22:00.000-07:002019-04-08T08:22:11.986-07:00Lighting the Spark<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Lwd7TyJb4gM/XKtl8q96cZI/AAAAAAAAAXY/oX490MbgiMoAxasid1LRL2Mw_4iiBEr4ACLcBGAs/s1600/light-abstract-background4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="885" data-original-width="1186" height="238" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Lwd7TyJb4gM/XKtl8q96cZI/AAAAAAAAAXY/oX490MbgiMoAxasid1LRL2Mw_4iiBEr4ACLcBGAs/s320/light-abstract-background4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">As it’s spring, I believe it’s time to begin. I have spent the last eight months building myself up to launch my project, but after all this time of talking about it I am still only ready to launch its conception not its birth. However, maybe it is important that the idea is born and gestated for a while before any action can begin.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I have called the project PIPPA - People in Positive Politics Association and its fundamental and main tenor is to take the ‘party’ out of politics and put the people back in.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard people - young or old, completely indifferent or interested in the subject - say how our political system is broken and no longer serves us (as if at one point it did?!) I would have many pennies. It seems like the topic of the moment and it has picked me up and swept me on a new journey whether I am ready, like it or not.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My dream is to create a body of people who are willing to support this change and eventually I know this will involve everyone. It is likely, however, that it will draw politicians and people interested and already working in that sector first, but as I believe we will start to see the structure that we have upheld for generations crumble, we will also see that it is up to all of us to pick up the baton and create something new that works for all and engages everyone.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Obviously, not everyone will engage at first, but I hope that it will initially draw enough people from all walks of life to set it in motion. Diversity is the key to what makes this new method of working function in a sustainable way.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Even though I feel I am stepping into the unknown, I also feel that everything in our world, as well as my own, has brought us to this point where this is not only absolutely possible, but necessary and inevitable.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The shift in the relationship between the people that make up our society and those we have allowed to take control and power over us has changed beyond recognition. The arrival of the Internet to connect us and the knowledge that we have all played a part in the destruction of our ecosystem brings us to a pivotal point. I do not believe in blame or judgement here but I feel the key factor is that if we have played a part in damaging the planet then equally, we have the power to repair the damage done. However, it is important that we stand up and choose to take action now.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I want to create a political environment that puts life first, a system that works in connection with everyone and everything on this Earth. A system that is sustainable in all ways, that serves us and is served by us. This is not what we have at the moment; what we have is out-dated and no longer fit for purpose.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It is understood that humanity only changes when we find ourselves confronted with no alternative; a combination of complacency and extreme anxiety has prevented us from stepping forward until this moment of necessity. So although the majority of people are not in a position to act, I believe there are enough who are.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I want to play my part but although every birth is a personal experience I also know I can’t do this work alone. So over the next few months I will be putting this idea into a thing of substance while putting out a call for people to join me.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I wish to stress that what I am offering here is not something new. It’s happening all over the country and all over Europe and beyond and Citizen’s Assemblies lie at the heart of this new landscape.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Frome is a leading light in many ways, having its own independent Town Council and acting as a beacon as many towns are starting to follow. So I feel perfectly placed to work alongside what is happening here to provide a hub, a link and a springboard for sustenance and growth.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am intending to start locally first and then broaden my reach and join forces with other organisations already looking to make important changes for our future.</span></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If you feel inclined, please get in touch.</span></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-28070277101685250162019-03-08T08:13:00.001-08:002019-03-08T08:13:59.695-08:00A Gentle Evolution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fqGGIkZUjSk/XIGub6KcHvI/AAAAAAAAAW4/stah0u77zukaDig_B3I8ZVl1WidyeBUFQCLcBGAs/s1600/diversity-group-business-people-community-team-concept_53876-23009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="626" height="309" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fqGGIkZUjSk/XIGub6KcHvI/AAAAAAAAAW4/stah0u77zukaDig_B3I8ZVl1WidyeBUFQCLcBGAs/s320/diversity-group-business-people-community-team-concept_53876-23009.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Spring is approaching and all the hope that new growth brings is stirring in my heart. I can’t believe that after decades of cynicism and disenchantment that morphed into dreams of utopia and wild optimism, I finally feel like I've arrived in a place of quiet but realistic confidence.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I have no idea what the future will bring but I do feel change is on its way. Of course, it is not a widely held belief and the media will be the last to tell us, but I can see the small shoots of shifting paradigms sprouting up everywhere I look. You just have to search for them in places you may not have looked before.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I have been told that some of the huge ships that cross our oceans have rudders that have a small rudder set inside the main one. Before the ship can change direction the small one has to be aligned in the right direction first. This is true for any great change and if our society is going to achieve anything positive we have to set our internal rudders for the right course before we make any outward shifts. Although I believe this is happening on a global scale, it is only just visible on the small scale. This is how positive change succeeds.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>People are beginning to wake up to the power we hold as individuals when we act as a community. The strength of the group is more than the sum of its parts.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We have remained in a state of believing we are separate from and in conflict with each other for centuries as governments and dictators have upheld the ‘divide and rule’ doctrine. This has kept fear and hatred alive in our hearts.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now, everything is set for change to bring us all together. Science discovered the world of quantum mechanics and this has brought us a greater understanding of the hidden, mysterious workings of the universe. It has also given us the technology to create the Internet. Global communication, although many people believe it has brought us more shadow than light, has actually shown us how we have more in common than not.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Those still clinging onto the fear are shouting louder than most as the wind is being removed from their sails, making it seem as though there are many more than there actually are. Those who are finding their way are quietly and gently going about their business. It is up to those who trust and believe in the power of the many to stay strong and keep walking forwards positively, united, and with love in their hearts.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There are many ways in which this is happening but I am particularly interested in the shift in political power. I understood change would only come up from the grass roots. Our political establishment was formed many centuries ago from a society that was ruled by the old to keep control of its large, younger population. This has now shifted and the percentage of old people has grown so that the mean age of the rulers now matches the mean age of the populace. We are now in the position of being able to rule ourselves.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Citizen’s Assemblies are proving that this is possible. Not only are they proving that they work, but they are proving that they work where our existing political structure is completely failing us.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On February the 14th Stella Creasy was asked to put her views on citizens’ assemblies to the panel of Andrew Neil’s television programme <i>This Week.</i> Unfortunately she was up against two, or three if you count Andrew Neil, patronising men very fixed in their belief of the necessity our party political structure.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I believe, party politics has come to the end of its road and no longer serves anyone except those who have the money to exploit it or simply do well by it. As the system creates a huge divide between those who have and those who do not, the power and the money is put in the hands of fewer and fewer people, who become increasingly out of touch of the realities of day-to-day life for the many.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Creasy is trying to make changes from within the political structure, and I would normally say that this is always the best place to be. However, in this instance, Portillo just saw the whole subject as a ruse to play the Remain card against the Brexit. Of course, caught up in his narrow vision of two party politics he cannot see beyond the binary view he works within.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Citizen’s Assemblies come from a stance of no preset agendas or outcomes and certainly no investment gains to be made. It is made up of a group of people of completely diverse backgrounds, the more diversity the better, with experts on hand, and where everybody’s voice is heard. It does not ask for ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers but comes up with best solutions formulated over time with facilitated, calm discussion. This is grown-up politics, not the ridiculous theatrical farce we see on television from our House of Commons.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Although, England’s politicians may be slow on the uptake, fearful of losing their position in society, Europe is picking up the baton and starting to run with it. A precedent was set in Ireland and now Belgium and Spain have put some assemblies in place as a permanent fixture alongside their councils.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Maybe there is a feeling that Britain is lagging behind but in 2015 Sheffield and Southampton both set up an assembly to look at constitutional change, asking the question ‘how should we be governed?” What has come from this? It feels like they were testing the water but no one has been bold enough to make it part of the political structure. The UK is certainly not short of assemblies being set up. A new group has formed in Bideford out of a concern that people are felt that are not being listened to and two London borough councils are going to run an assembly, but these are generally about asking the community what they think, not as an alternative to the way our politicians make decisions. Other than these toe-dipping exercises where are we going with this?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Although this might sound like impatience, I am actually quietly content that this is the best way forward; a slow but steady growth of political change that doesn’t upset any apple carts, no revolutions, just an easing into position of a new system that works so that when the old one crumbles we have something ready to take its place. No one really wants to run before they can walk!</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For those still set on being right against anyone they consider to be wrong at any cost, there is a poem written by the Sufi mystic, Rumi, a thirteenth century Persian poet.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.” In searching for this quote i found another:</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sometimes it is wise to listen to and be guided by those from times past, before stepping into an unknown future. But I believe it’s time to find a new way forward rather than to keep relying on old methods that truly no longer serve us.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Let’s get creative together.</span></div><div><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div><br />Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-23323604844907625152019-02-06T10:31:00.000-08:002019-02-06T10:37:43.245-08:00Creating Sustainable Ideals<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UDQYQxL5w0E/XFsnnj59JiI/AAAAAAAAAWk/hRD6-KzAWjUm2gqg7OIin10WOijrcGoIACLcBGAs/s1600/world%2Bjpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="436" height="237" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UDQYQxL5w0E/XFsnnj59JiI/AAAAAAAAAWk/hRD6-KzAWjUm2gqg7OIin10WOijrcGoIACLcBGAs/s320/world%2Bjpeg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Five weeks into the new year and already my mind is cluttered with over sensory bombardment. All of it, my doing, of course. Time to take a deep breath and address where I feel I need to be putting my energy this year. For Christmas, my partner bought me a book, <i>The Choice </i>by Edith Eger, a holocaust survivor. It is the most amazing testament to hope, strength and commitment to love and forgiveness I have read in a long time. I haven’t cried so much, over a book, in years. But they were tears of joy as much as for another person’s pain and journey to love. However, I had to finish it fast before my asthma, triggered by my empathetic feelings of grief, kept me awake yet another night!&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">No sooner had I finished that book, my hand was drawn to another I had started a few years back but put down after thirty pages because I don’t do horror stories. It was Naomi Kline’s <i>Shock and Awe</i>, which filled me with more terror than Edith Eger’s powerful book.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">What does our recent past tell us from stories such as these, whether they are personal or worldly tales?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It is clear that people only create change when forced or unhappy with their lot. This means that the desire for change always draws upon ideals, whether they are sociological, economic or political, propelled by a need to swing the pendulum, bound to ideas of revolution. So history shows how each new era seems to ping pong from one extreme to the next, driving the people, as mere pawns in all these leadership games, from one state of misery to another.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I feel a growing global demand for change, no more revolution, but evolution. In this age of information we, the general public, are becoming more aware of the twisting and rewriting of information we are offered as truth. Although it is probably the most confusing of times, with the Internet showing us as many untruths as truths, I live in hope that from the confusion will grow an understanding that we need to become discerning and more responsible.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Past ideals have, from these continual revolutionary style changes, shown that nothing from our known history has worked, that anything that creates divisive and wholly opposite mindsets can, obviously, never serve the whole of humanity. Daniel Schmachtenberger offered a beautiful concept in his talk about emergence, when he said that if you are happy in the belief that you will go to heaven while there is also the possibility that others may go to hell, then you have the mindset of a ‘psychopath’. That sums up my whole vision of how our society is working at the moment and has worked for the past few thousand years. It’s time for change.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Everything we have created throughout known history, seems to be based on a binary perspective, that there can only be one way or the other. We have socialism or capitalism, communism or fascism, left wing or right wing, and on it goes. We are all aware of the horrors and the death tolls created by so many corrupted leaders throughout history, culminating in the last century with Hitler, Stalin and Mao (the latter two with the genocide of millions of their own people) but how much are we told about the sadistic ventures of post American reaction to Communism and Marxism. The man who gave us Capitalism, Milton Friedman’s belief that he’d created a beautiful idea inspired the Chicago school of economics that fuelled the Capitalism that lies at the heart of the US policy at home and abroad. I won’t go into the story of the many regimes that US governments removed and installed in South America leaving it stricken with communities split apart with so many problems, the most obvious being division of those living in extreme poverty and those with shameless wealth. But this corrupt construct can be seen across many corners of the world. Of course, I am not saying that America was the first, but this self-proclaimed ‘land of the free’, - created out of those fleeing from persecution of the ideals of other regimes, has fallen, once more into the pit of extremism - perhaps needs a strap line - ‘only for the 0.5 per cent’.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">For years, to me, Capitalism has always been a dirty word, one that seems to herald consumption, consumerism, greed and opposition. It felt exploitative and unscrupulous, led by the few to keep the wealth to themselves while the rest can go hang. Then slowly I began to realise that the socialism I had clung to for so long wasn’t perfect either and that maybe one could cherry pick rather than stand at opposite sides of the bench and throw stones.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Then, my horizon expanded and I heard about positive Capitalism and I realised there was some hope on its way. I saw that, like so many other ideas given to us, only part of the story was initially available. I was reminded of the gospels and how many of them were hidden because they told a different story to the one the founders of christianity wanted us to hear, or Darwin’s theory of evolution where only his theories on ‘survival of the fittest’ are handed down to us, when actually that is only mentioned a few times and love is mentioned over and over.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I learned that the Capitalism we have created, that only serves the shareholders and top echelons of the hierarchy, creates a system that is top heavy and unsustainable. I was to be presented, by a group called Conscious Business Initiative, a model that would transform my feelings and feel positive that there was a way forward without needing to rip up the program, create more devastation and rebuild (exactly how the Friedman Chicago Boys have worked for the past few decades).</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Working with astrology, Gaia and now TreeSisters I have been learning for the last decade or so how nature is our mirror, our guide and our teacher. When we choose to remember that we are not separate from our environment it shows us the way. The torus is a mechanism or a model of the universe, now called the ring doughnut theory, that can be found throughout creation, from galaxies, to the Earth, to ourselves. I first heard about this in the movie <i>Thrive</i>. It is a universal geometric shape that generates a constant flow of energy. When we understand it metaphorically we can see how the Capitalism we have now, flies in the face of this universal lesson. Instead of a Torus we have created a pyramid, where the energy, money in this case, flows up to the few at the top and instead of naturally flowing back down to the many, it has stayed there, stuck in off shore accounts and other such accumulations of wealth.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sadly, when we work against this way of nature, (in the fluid way shown by trees or our weather systems etc.)&nbsp; and stem the flow, more can be upset than the economies of a few counties. Now our whole ecology is at stake.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">As we are now discovering, possibly too late, that all this is to our detriment, we need to find a way through this crisis. First, we need to accept that as an interwoven connected species we are all responsible for where we find ourselves. Portioning blame will not solve anything, it will simply add to the chaos and desire for retribution which will only fuel the fire of revolution. More than ever we need evolution, especially as we have to accept that it is not just ours, but the evolution&nbsp; of the whole Earth.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We need to feed the vision of our future; that a sustainable world is possible and that the desire for competition, fear of scarcity and attachment to money can simply slip away. However, I do believe that the road to change starts within for each individual. While it is impossible to think we can all do this inner work, I believe that enough can begin to remember that we too exist as a torus; the embodiment of the life force, love in motion. I also believe in the one hundred monkeys theory: that once enough of us have learned how to step into the new way, as we are all connected, we all step up together.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Creating the possibility for the pyramid to open up to the form of the torus, we can begin to heal and start to function as a society based on love and compassion. The vision of conscious capitalism works as a circle, where everyone connected to the business, be it the shareholders, the stakeholders the customers, the suppliers and anyone else involved, all need to be considered. Here everyone becomes part of the community, everyone is valued and brings their own diversity and uniqueness to the world. It is, of course, too simple for us humans who love to complicate everything with too many words and concepts. I am fully aware that I am part of that issue too!</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We have to learn to trust and love and believe that we are all capable of working together in reverence for ourselves and the whole of our community.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Many years ago, when I was driving to Liverpool alone, I was guided to pick up a hitcher. (I would never have considered it without the inner guidance.) I retold the story to my friends explaining my delight when the young man who got into my car turned out to be just like me, a musician, a music teacher and a healer, almost my mirror. We had a very enjoyable encounter for just a few hours. I was chastised by some friends who told me it so easily could have gone the other way. I replied saying ‘yes it could but if everyone woke up one day and decided that everyone, including ourselves, was lovable and trustworthy the world could change over night’.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-86434373341066986622019-01-06T14:39:00.000-08:002019-01-06T14:41:51.367-08:00A New Year - A Gateway to our Future<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kzn6JE-pwB4/XDKDT-_vqGI/AAAAAAAAAWA/sWPAS5x8NZk2FYgs1FYM9uvp77dWwh2NQCLcBGAs/s1600/clouds-dawn-dusk-163255.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="904" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kzn6JE-pwB4/XDKDT-_vqGI/AAAAAAAAAWA/sWPAS5x8NZk2FYgs1FYM9uvp77dWwh2NQCLcBGAs/s320/clouds-dawn-dusk-163255.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Happy New Year! Hard to believe it’s 2019 but here we are and I’ve never felt so positive and excited about the prospects of the year to come, whilst feeling at the same time pretty anxious. The world is changing quicker than I could have imagined, but I am also feeling that now we can really start to make some important changes while keeping our heads and hearts open and centred. These changes might take many years to bring into place but as everything is moving so fast, and we have so few years left before a serious shift will occur, all we can to do is put as much as we can in place for the times ahead.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Every time I wake up to an idea for a way forward I am excited to realise that so many people are way ahead of me and that it’s already happening. This doesn’t mean I can just sit back and let others get on with it. These ideas are happening at the grass roots, on a local level and it up to all who feel moved to participate and get involved.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Last year brought a wonderful sequence of wake up calls for me from courses I took part in to &nbsp; just simply opening my computer and seeing what it threw at me. As the year rolled on I was systematically carried on a path encouraging me to grow up and take responsibility for my own life and what I could be doing with it within the community.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">What was most exciting was realising that as I said, ’yes’ to each step I knew I was opening doors to completely unchartered territories and walking into an unknown. After years of being a musician I realised I had never taken on any more responsibility other than for my own life. Now, moment by moment I was being asked to broaden my horizons.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">5 years ago, I mentioned in a previous blog that I had envisioned a project that would bring together all those who wanted to bring into this world a new energy of positivity and love; lives based on cooperation, self-responsibility and community, in a restorative and harmonious relationship with the land. It was too big, too soon and I put it on hold so that I could get to know my new community - as I had just arrived in Frome - to learn about what was going on here and more about myself.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">What a gift, only looking back am I able to see how much I have benefitted from this.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Last year it was a made clear to me that I had reached a place where I had experienced enough to start putting this project together. However, I was aware I still knew nothing about how to go about it other than to start talking to people and gather them in. This is what I have been doing and although I feel i am no clearer about how to take this project forward I have taken a few steps forward in engaging with my community. What I have particularly learned is that it is ok not to know. It is in this place of not needing to know that new ideas can come in, otherwise we restrict ourselves to the limiting answers that got us in this state in the first place. It was Einstein that said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. If you want to create something new you have to be completely open to letting go of being in control, and be open to the unknown path that can lead to a desired outcome.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This prospect truly excites me. It takes great faith and this is what I believe will get us through.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We humans have so much creative spirit, so much wisdom, new and old. If we can put our hearts together and look at the roads that brought us here and really understand what mistakes we have made then there is great hope.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We have created a world based on fear and separation, whilst still knowing what a world based on love and trust would look like. Yet we are too scared, en masse, to take that step. Our world as we know it is dying. However, it is my belief that enough people can be brave enough to step into that vulnerable state of complete open heartedness and imagine a new way of living. If we can believe and dream a big enough dream then we can break away from stories that no longer serve us and begin to shed our old skin and grow, creating the world we have always longed for, like the phoenix form the ashes. It is time to believe, for believing makes it so.</span></div><br />Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-55234198848023695032018-11-10T08:08:00.001-08:002018-11-11T15:22:27.951-08:00Life Is A Series Of Cycles<h2 style="text-align: center;"></h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YuzPiy2uJd8/W-cCZr9El3I/AAAAAAAAAVo/XfU6UBzNBCwkejiz6R7UftYsGVAjKgZugCLcBGAs/s1600/Blog%2B-image%2Bjpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YuzPiy2uJd8/W-cCZr9El3I/AAAAAAAAAVo/XfU6UBzNBCwkejiz6R7UftYsGVAjKgZugCLcBGAs/s320/Blog%2B-image%2Bjpeg.jpg" width="317" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I have always known that life is a series of cycles, but have not till now truly felt its impact. My parents both lived through the Second World War and I always felt that those times impacted on those who lived through it more than any of us can imagine. Now we are in the middle of another conflict, a far subtler one than before and it starts within and is now showing itself in nearly every aspect of life. It divides us, as our hearts that only know love, have been taught to feel hate for so long we do not even see the issue here. This plays out in our families, with our neighbours, it has now divided our country and our nations.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We are in a state of crisis in every walk of life; ecologically, economically, politically and emotionally but we can &nbsp;change all this if we choose to.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As Brexit looms ever closer and people take their sides and firm up the walls while pulling up the draw bridge, I try and stay calm. However, this becomes increasingly difficult as the prospects are not looking good on any front. However, for every cloud there is a silver lining and more proverbs than I could care to remember about such situations. What we would do well consider is that what has brought us to this juncture is mainly rhetoric, and no one truly knows what the future may hold.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A wider viewpoint is perhaps necessary here. The film <i>Sliding Doors</i> comes to mind. This brings in the idea that whatever our destiny is we will get there anyway but perhaps have a choice of the routes we take to get there.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I did feel at the beginning that if a new way was going to evolve, the emergence of a better world for all, then the old regime would need to fall away. If we wanted this to happen quickly (which I do not believe is helpful) then I did think that Brexit could be the answer. If we wanted our country to crash in a way not felt here before then leaving Europe and drawing up the bridge would isolate us and make us realise that we are just a small insignificant island after all. But that’s just politically and geographically, as an experiment to experience the emergence of the new world, this island has the chance to lead the way.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>However, I feel it is important to understand a few things and to recognise how we arrived at this place. I heard at the anti-people’s vote rally that someone was reported to have said that ‘it is time we returned to the time when we were a great empire’. I think this statement speaks from the viewpoint of an extremist and has been some of the fuel driving the campaign. I feel it is important to be aware of the divisive nature of this referendum and how it has polarised us as a nation in so many ways.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I feel we need to revisit the history lessons we teach in schools. When I was in Israel in the 80s and visited the Holocaust Museum I was horrified that a young German amongst our kibbutz volunteers was hearing about the Holocaust for the first time here. He was reduced to sobbing through the film. As a Jew I was very upset for him and presumed that Germany simply wasn’t ready to teach this history in its schools as yet. It was only 40 years since the war. However, earlier this year I discovered that this actually wasn’t true and that in the 80s Germany was going hell for leather teaching its children about its dark past.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Why don’t we do this? It took till I was 40 to learn that the Irish famine wasn’t just&nbsp;about the potato blight, but a situation taken advantage of by our government designed to starve the Irish people while their food was being shipped out the country to England. The reason for this seemed to be to teach the Irish a lesson! We may have worked hard to improve our relationship with Ireland and its people but I do not feel we are taking enough responsibility for our part in the story. To me it feels like we are expecting all the work to be done between the North and the South. We are still in a place of denial about our actions here and all around the world.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If we are not educated and our history explained to people then no one will understand the full story. If we don’t teach our citizens that this is the result of hundreds of years of the British Empire’s imperialistic bullying and ruthless actions then they will only feel anger towards what is going on. We would understand a lot more if we heard everyone’s perspective and not just our own. Every conflict has two sides, I sense that we have only ever been taught one; ours. That is only half a truth.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I believe it is time to become more aware of our role in the world story and take responsibility for our part here and the damage we have done. The Irish story in particular needs understanding for the whole 800 year journey and the sooner this is more widely taught the better.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As those who voted for Brexit point the finger at Europe and those that voted Remain point at those who voted for Brexit, it is important to remember that three of those fingers are pointing back at themselves. We are all embroiled in this for all the good and all that is not at all good.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We are now entering another cycle,&nbsp;</span>&nbsp;signalled by Uranus' 84 year journey around the sun,<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">&nbsp;that is bringing us right back to the energy of the rise of the right before the Second World War. This is an opportunity and it is up to us to choose which road we take, whether we step forward with conflict or peace in our hearts.</span></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-31248721894551387022018-08-15T08:07:00.005-07:002018-08-15T08:32:43.307-07:00Community Rising - Step one<h2 style="text-align: center;">Community Rising - Step one<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;futura&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;futura&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-07O-zKX_uoY/W3RHhqLeTYI/AAAAAAAAAVM/wyLZfdvzRuUKzcWCnTgXIpGdDEeAqMW3wCLcBGAs/s1600/Community%2BRising%2Bjpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="397" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-07O-zKX_uoY/W3RHhqLeTYI/AAAAAAAAAVM/wyLZfdvzRuUKzcWCnTgXIpGdDEeAqMW3wCLcBGAs/s320/Community%2BRising%2Bjpeg.jpg" width="318" /></a></span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;futura&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal;"> &nbsp;&nbsp;</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;futura&quot;; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal;">&nbsp; It’s been a while since my last blog and for those of you who have enjoyed my thoughts over the last few years, I apologise. I am hoping to now make amends and start blogging more regularly. The issue was that I have been formulating a plan and it has taken rather a while to come to fruition. Even now it is only in an embryonic state.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-family: Futura; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As I have been quiet for so long I feel my thoughts will come rather like a dam breaking, so I will split them into a few separate blogs and hope then to pull them altogether when the timing is right. I would like to start by filling you in with the whole story to giving you an understanding of where this all came from.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-family: Futura; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I have been in Frome for five years and have enjoyed every minute, its vibrancy and sense of community is powerful and invigorating. I arrived in 2013 around the time that Russell Brand was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman and I was hugely inspired by his words. He spoke of building a new political way of working and this excited me as I have dreamed of this since I was 15. I never believed it possible but hearing his words and his confidence in the idea that he had no idea how it would happen or what the new landscape would look like, I knew he was on to something. He was working with evolution and not revolution - which always end in tears. This beautifully mirrored what was happening in Frome. Here, a group of individuals, who wished to drop party politics, came together and reformed the archaic system we have in our towns and replaced it with something progressive and effective. This was given a vote of confidence by the people of Frome as in the first elections, 11 out of 17 new independents gained seats and in the second they were voted in across all the wards.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-family: Futura; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I began to get the feeling that anything was possible. Inspired and energised I put out a call to gather together all like minded people to see what we could do. I wanted to create a Unity Party, a political movement for change. However, I was too premature in every way and particularly in myself. I had much to learn. So I immersed myself in Frome life, the community and the various groups that were working within it and gained a degree of understanding and had a great deal of fun at the same time.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-family: Futura; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I also had a lot of ‘life’ to contend with, losing my father and my partner losing both parents, was only a part of the list of what’s being going on. I learned to understand that everything has its time and that nothing can be rushed.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Futura; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>By the beginning of 2018 I had connected with TreeSisters, (about ten years later than everyone else I know!) and that hit me like a brick. ‘</span><span style="font-kerning: none;">TreeSisters is a global network of women who donate monthly to fund the restoration of our tropical forests as a collective expression of planetary care.’ </span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">I find their work incredibly inspiring and the wealth of knowledge I have gained about myself and about our history as women in this country still amazes and horrifies me.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-family: Futura; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I feel like the whole year has been nurturing me. I attended a course at Hawkwood College, in Stroud, with Andrew Harvey, the founder/director of the institute of sacred activism, and a talk at the same college by Miki Kashtan, an International teacher, who guides people into leadership through discovering their ‘fearless heart’. At this point I realised I had shirked any kind of leadership roles in life all my life. It is time to step up.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-family: Futura; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I also have learned that we can do nothing by ourselves. The TreeSisters taught me many things but one important thing is that we must gather our community together and can only operate being supported at all times.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-family: Futura; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So if you have any interest in my work, which I will explain over the coming months, I am going to be asking for some support. I sincerely hope I can entice you in even if it is just for the smallest thing.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; font-family: Futura; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I would like to thank you for reading this far and in anticipation of what may be yet to come.</span></div></h2><div><br /></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-2897448748650640702017-11-17T02:34:00.003-08:002017-11-17T02:36:05.801-08:00Putting down the Stone<br /><h2 style="text-align: center;">Putting down the Stone</h2><h2 style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ez02wuD6xMQ/Wg6686HSmdI/AAAAAAAAAT0/QJD7TQxZUL4cq9ZkssKQXwMboJ65MWzXQCLcBGAs/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="272" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ez02wuD6xMQ/Wg6686HSmdI/AAAAAAAAAT0/QJD7TQxZUL4cq9ZkssKQXwMboJ65MWzXQCLcBGAs/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div></h2><div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I have been exploring a few ideas this year and they have all grown out of one main need; to heal limiting and dysfunctional beliefs handed down to me through my ancestral line. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">This has not come from a place of judgement or anger, just a desire to move on and put down the cross that we are all bearing in some way.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">For me, judgement is the key issue here and I feel the need to point out that most of our reasons for trying to make this world a better place are still coming from a place of judgement. This needs to stop if we are really going to move forward into a new, open and compassionate way of working. Mostly we need to begin to be honest with ourselves. If we are constantly pointing the finger at other people and saying, ‘It’s because of you that this world is a bad place,’ then we are clearly misguided. That is step one.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This blog has taken its time to come to fruition and this has not been helped by the fasting turning of events throughout the year. Every time I think I have come to a place of knowing what I want to say, the world moves on. The last month has particularly highlighted this as the battle of the classes has turned into a battle of the sexes. This has brought me to place of wanting to retreat completely. As I see the hunger for judgement and retribution reach great heights I began to feel that what ever I wish to add would simply be fuelling the fire.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">With this in mind I will try to be brief, the detail to be found in my books and plays.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">My sense is that we are being dragged into a small version of the story and forgetting to see the bigger picture. If we are to truly heal as a race or at least as a community then we need to recognise that the story we are playing out in our lives is just a mirror of what we are within. We must look to ourselves to see what conflict lies there before we cast any stones.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I believe this is something we have forgotten and the fear and anger that we feel inside creates a blindness for both men and woman alike. Although it is impossible to understand the whole story, as it is far too complex, what is far more important is to know that we are all part of it, we are all part of the problem and the solution all at once. To step aside and take the stone out of our hand takes courage but I believe is crucial for a way out of this growing crisis in our society today. To continue throwing stones, however wrong those that have done wrong seem, will not solve the problem. I am not saying we should stand back and do nothing, i just feel it is important to act prudently rather than over react.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Those who commit anti-social acts do not behave that way in a vacuum. Everyone has a story and this is where compassion is needed and an ability to see the whole of society’s story not just the parts. The last hundred years has been such a whirlwind of change, two world wars that created extreme repression of emotions and other events, such as women’s right to vote and the pill, that offered great emancipation. No wonder the road has been filled with pitfalls. When people behave badly it is important to recognise that they are just showing us the effect of what our whole society has created when it doesn’t consider its actions fully. When we see its effect, rather than raising our fists in anger and desire for revenge, we should be looking at the causes and what we can do to change from the root up. When we choose to judge we put ourselves in a very vulnerable position making the conflict within cut even deeper, as judging becomes part of the problem.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Now, times have become so hard for so many, fear and anger is understandably never far from the surface and this often creates a desire to justify our own story and a need to blame others. If we are aware that these feelings really all stem from the conflict we carry within, often handed down by our lineage, then we must recognise how this plays out in any relationship. If we believe that&nbsp; one person is to blame and the other blameless this becomes part of the misconception we constantly are living in. This can be seen across warring nations, communities and families. If you want change in your life, as Gandhi said, ‘be the change’. It is the only way forward and if you feel you are not part of the issue then think again.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We all bring emotional baggage into our life, it is part of our inheritance on a personal, national and international level. The moment we except this, is the moment that change will start for real, not in our courts but on the streets, across our towns, cities and countries.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It is time, surely to find a new approach. Force, judgement and legislation are all methods that have fallen short of the mark. It is time to listen, understand and communicate in a new way where everyone has a voice and we all understand that we have played a part in making the story what it is today. We need to be compassionate without exception for we all need bringing in from the dark.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There is a place,</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Beyond right and wrong</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ll meet you there (Rumi)</span></div></div><div><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-10394773086971006592017-05-06T09:07:00.000-07:002017-05-06T09:07:34.498-07:00War and Peace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">War and Peace</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sW09H6mQm6g/WQ30Dpzx6PI/AAAAAAAAARE/Hj3AF8lg7Ps3g61W94jNZhg46KSAVAJiwCLcB/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sW09H6mQm6g/WQ30Dpzx6PI/AAAAAAAAARE/Hj3AF8lg7Ps3g61W94jNZhg46KSAVAJiwCLcB/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So I recently got back from a trip to the South of France and was hoping to view the visit with an objective eye. My main reason was initially, simply a break. After all the work I put into creating and launching my book and CD it was sorely needed. Second, I wanted to visit an old very close friend who had recently moved to the deepest part of Southern France.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">&nbsp;</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There is much to say about this area but I know a lot of people feel drawn to visit for many reasons. Whether you believe Mary Magdelene arrived there 2,000 years ago or not, the fact is, a group of people lived there in the time after Jesus’ death till 1209. At this time the Catholic church, terrified by their pure and non politicised beliefs, decided they were heretics and too dangerous to allowed to remain living there. And they did a pretty good job. My friend lives near Beziers and I felt a strong desire to visit the town where 20,000 people were massacred and go and sit in the church where 7.000 of those who sought refuge were slaughtered.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This you might know from my last blog. What I find so hard is the fact that people today are so limited by the teachings we are handed down that very few can see the story for what, I believe, it is truly telling us.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The town today is burdened by this deed and did not feel blessed with the vibrant atmosphere one might expect in this sunny part of the world. I wonder why?! How can we shake off these political strangling belief systems that so shape our lives and prevent us from seeing what and who we are. We might think that those who were left, who won the battle of the Cathars would be victors. But actually we are now, collectively, slaves to those who forced us to commit atrocities on our fellow people and believe that they were less than ourselves.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We are the walking wounded, cut off from our sense of empathy and told we should feel we are better than others. However, we just end up putting walls all around our hearts to protect ourselves from the feelings of pain and horror the act of committing these atrocities create inside us. This is not a taste of victory. This is oppression.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It is time to understand that the world is moving on. Scientists today are beginning to see how the new physics, the quantum world, is teaching us that we are all connected as one, bound in a field of energy, a force held by love. Grasping this new sense of reality could revolutionise the way we see ourselves in relation to each other and the whole world we inhabit, in an instant.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Last week, I was devastated to hear Question Time end without an answer to the comment put by a young man who basically said the only way Britain can remain a great world power is to keep our nuclear weapons. I, personally, cannot relate to any word of that sentence. It sounds like it is filled with fear, separation and a huge lack of self worth.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It reveals to me the pain we are carrying as a nation. A truly great nation is one that sits in its own place of power, without fear or hatred to its neighbours. It interacts with the world from a place of benevolence and generosity, looking after its own and caring for its neighbours. A truly great nation would be the first to put the weapons down. Abolishing Trident would be the finest thing we could do as a nation. Our wealth would know no bounds; in our NHS, our schools and in the workplace and of course in our hearts. I know that there are a huge amount of people who do not agree with anything this young man said either. However, the programme ended with a huge round of applause which was ringing in my ears as I went to sleep.&nbsp;</span></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Just how far from any sense of love and connectedness do we have to get before people realise how we are being manipulated, sadly, quite a way yet. Please off set the balance and stay strong in your heart in peace and love for all.</span></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-37292649988646380612017-04-23T04:30:00.000-07:002017-04-23T04:30:14.176-07:00Seeing Things for What they Truly Are<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0R9MPJiGzUY/WPyMJrddakI/AAAAAAAAAOI/0DIj3wMWJY833x1WM_nl6q9Ij1j8Wsf_ACLcB/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0R9MPJiGzUY/WPyMJrddakI/AAAAAAAAAOI/0DIj3wMWJY833x1WM_nl6q9Ij1j8Wsf_ACLcB/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The Church of Mary Magdalene, site of a Cathar massacre in 1209</div><br /><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Seeing Things for What they Truly Are</b></span></h2><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Everytime there is a gathering of friends or family nowadays the main conversation point is ‘no politics here’. It seems like the subject has become so weighted and filled with poison that people are too frightened or tired to get involved in more arguing or moaning.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">On one hand I totally agree, but on the other I really feel the only way out is through. We have to come to terms with where we are right now and why this is happening.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">As always for me the story is so much bigger than we think. I am off on holiday to the South of France to see my very wonderful school friend who has recently moved to the Beziers area, the Cathar area of France. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I know a little about the history there and would very much like to visit the church of Mary Magdelene. In 1209 the massacre of Beziers against the Cathars, killed 20.000 people, 7,000 of those were taking refuge in this church. An Abbott, one of the commanders of the crusade, was asked by a crusader, how they should tell a Catholic from a Cathar. He replied,&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">"Kill them all, for the Lord knoweth them that are His.” No one was spared in that town from the priests to the babies.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Where have we come since then. Times, I do not believe, have really changed they have just become more sophisticated. Though we do openly massacre anyone we think disagrees with our way of being, mainly we just ride waves in and out of social conscience that give the impression that things are improving then slide back into the anger and fear again.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I feel the last century was an amazing time of social shift, with the first half full of revolution and war. We came out of the two wars with great hope and this country began to develop an amazing social structure which seemed like it was for the good of all. Having done it first, Europe then followed suit and as always some did it so much better.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">As Capitalism took hold in the 80s we slipped into the quagmire we find ourselves in today with the individual more important than the community and finances up the creek, all built on thin air.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The governments seems extremely adept at saying one thing to the people, which en masse the majority seem to wholly believe, and doing the opposite in reality. Part of the skill is shifting the blame and today it is obviously being pointed away from the real truth.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Now the scape goat, that is Europe, is being well and truly cast out we are going to be left face the music.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">When I visit this church, where I feel much of the pain we have created in our society began, where we started killing our own in the name of religion, for what we were told was some greater good, I feel the cycle is hopefully nearly able to be completed and ready for breaking open.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">However, while we are still massacring people abroad, allowing people to be malnourished here and elsewhere, creating poverty and mental illness through the stress of just everyday living, we are still miles from home. We also know the darkest part of the night is just before the dawn.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It is time to wake up to what we are being told and realise that the truth is not on some billboard or spoken by our politicians. They have no one’s interests but their own at heart. We need to realise that what is best for us is only what is also best for everyone. When we choose to create a world where we can say we truly have that in our society then we know we have made a change. Otherwise we are just circling around variations of different types of oppression.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Starting with ourselves is the only way, and love and forgiveness is the way forward. I know I keep saying this but until we really hold it in our hearts we cannot expect anyone else to change.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Owning and taking responsibility for everything that we have created, recognising when we are being part of the problem, and knowing that everything we continue to do will make a difference whether it is positive or negative is the way for change.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Let’s keep the conversation open and start creating a new world filled with love.</span></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-90145258553954066672017-03-27T11:53:00.001-07:002017-03-27T11:53:08.713-07:00The Long Shadow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bqJoyWtKTJc/WNkLpbwjn-I/AAAAAAAAAN0/FIh57PrnExsU4JSfGOVVwHslRpCPDqE2gCLcB/s1600/Nasa-537519main_earth_pacific_1024-768.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bqJoyWtKTJc/WNkLpbwjn-I/AAAAAAAAAN0/FIh57PrnExsU4JSfGOVVwHslRpCPDqE2gCLcB/s320/Nasa-537519main_earth_pacific_1024-768.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><h2 style="text-align: center;">The Long Shadow</h2><div><br /></div><div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Well Spring is officially here, the clocks have sprung forward and the evenings are suddenly brighter. There is so much excitement in the air and I know we should be leaping forward into the embrace that Mother Nature offers. With all I have learned about this archetype I know there should be no thinking, just jumping in. However, I have moved to Frome, a highly exciting and fast moving, spirited town and its political nature is pulling me back into my head. As we are constantly being dragged out of our hearts into our heads it so easy to fall into fear and events in the news have been certainly doing that.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I am constantly trying to come to terms with what Brexit will mean for us and it does take me quite some time to find an answer that fits. As I work at putting my new book out in the big wide world I know that my thoughts are always being pulled towards the bigger picture (if you’re interested in the astrology I have 5 planets in Pisces, the last of the signs and the container of all) and I know it is the bigger picture that will give us the bigger, more meaningful answers.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I am hoping to keep this blog short, for once, as I sense that my second book is going to be the complete exploration of this story and interestingly I wrote the bulk of it two years ago before Brexit was in my consciousness but as synchronicity always has it, it is all there. I just want to touch on my ideas here. As usual, nothing I say is new but I hope to present them in my book in a way that gives meaning and way forward from our place of pain.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">In simple terms Brexit (as no one really knows what it will bring) represents, to me, putting up walls and splitting apart. As I constantly am working towards a world where we recognise that we are all one and nothing is separate from anything else, I know this is not the direction that makes sense. I have to understand that we are still going deeper into the darkness before we are ready to turn around to the light.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">As I listened to many of the speeches at the funeral of Martin McGuinness and was already aware of how my friend Jo Berry (daughter of Anthony Berry, the Tory MP killed in the Brighton Bombing, who now works for peace with the bomber) was speaking out her truth for peace and reconciliation, I know the story of Britain is a rich terrain from which we can learn much.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I touch upon a story in my book ‘Journey to the Golden City’ which is based on ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho and I know this reveals so much. The idea that we have to journey away from our home, our hearts, to be able to see more clearly that everything we need was always there for us if we have the eyes to see it, helps us return to discover our whole truth. I know this is the lesson we are travelling on, but sadly too many of us are still on the outward journey.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">In 2014 I wrote a play about reconciliation in Israel between an Israeli and a Palestinian couple sensing that the Israeli Government are simply playing out the pain the Jews are carrying on the Palestinians; the victim becoming the perpetrator - again, nothing new there. So it was necessary for me to view the story of Britain and I feel there is the same journey here.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">In brief, we can see our small island being constantly invaded throughout the first Millenia, after Christ. In revenge, we started flexing our muscles in the 12th Century with the Crusades over the Holy Land, then turned on the rest of the world in anger. The victim has become the greatest perpetrator but today we have no memory or understanding of why and we are just left with the anger. We do not see the wrong we are doing as we conquer lands and force them to live as we tell them and then wonder why they retaliate. As a Jew living in England for three generations I feel the burden of carrying all these truths within my ancestral lines.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">When Tebbit called for the IRA to stand up and be counted for their sins, I ask when are the British going to stand up for theirs, all 800 years of them. Having birthed a new nation with the same mindset in America, we are now creating a reality that is seen as the new civilised way to be, yet has no idea of what it is actually doing. Rulers who are crowned and lead out of fear and anger but refuse to look at themselves fully in the mirror.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">If Brexit means we have to become a tiny country, from Great Britain to little England before we will be able to return home from our Alchemist’s Journey and fully awaken to our truth, then so be it. The hard journey always delivers the gifts in the end and hopefully enough positive and determined people will stay to keep the light of peace and love shining.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">ps I would like to add if that last phrase brings out the cynic in you, may be we need to question why these simple important words have been deemed ‘a cliche’ rather than an imperative.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-83800565873425230712017-03-05T12:36:00.000-08:002017-03-05T12:36:26.823-08:00Keys to our Hearts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: center;">The Keys to our Hearts</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uUiHJp22Kqc/WLrpsKGGP-I/AAAAAAAAANg/7XHgBIF2im8_R7HABO01AnQsHEtOrAQhQCLcB/s1600/DSC_0170.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uUiHJp22Kqc/WLrpsKGGP-I/AAAAAAAAANg/7XHgBIF2im8_R7HABO01AnQsHEtOrAQhQCLcB/s320/DSC_0170.JPG" width="203" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I have been away from my blogging site for far too long and am feeling the struggle to get back to the page. Having spent most of the last six months bringing my book and CD into reality I am only just releasing myself from this huge task as it reaches a state of completion. Not only that I’ve put my band back together again and had a new website built. Busy, busy.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I am so pleased with the end result and am now just looking forward to getting my energy into promoting it all. I say looking forward with a slight reticence as this isn’t my world but one I’m aiming to move seamlessly into.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All this seems very positive but behind all this I can feel the weight of the year that has passed. My partner and I suffered so much loss last year and if there was a time when we didn’t have personal loss it seems that it was all around us. There was no time to draw breath between grieving one passing before the next hit us like a stone. It’s incredible how much this takes out of you when there seems like there is no reprieve, but working through the pain honestly aways brings a silver lining.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If it felt there was too much to deal with personally then nationally and globally the political and social changes have also been breathtaking, and not at all in a good way. However, I know that this is a personal and judgemental view and so needs deeper investigation.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There is so much to be grateful for and the joy of living in such an exciting town as Frome in such an exciting country keeps me buoyed. The shadow and light that seem to be emerging in all areas of life is incredible and keeping the faith through it is so important. To me this is the crux of the matter. While so much around us seems to be crumbling this, I feel, is our opportunity. If we are going to create a new way of living based on love and trust then we have to be loving and trusting even in the face of adversity. Well, actually the face of adversity is exactly where our love and trust works best. It is easy to love and trust when we are surrounded by the good things in life. The challenge is to honour all that we encounter, however scary they might seem. That does not mean we have to like it but if we feed it with our fear, (like the dark planet in the film 5th Element) it amplifies its shadow side. The best way to remove what we no longer need in our world is to send it love, to shine the light on it so it transforms itself.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now the first book in my trilogy has been published I am looking, after a little rest, to begin my next book. As the first “Journey to the Golden City” gives us the tools to work towards understanding our world with a broader sense of the wisdom available to us, the second will look into facing our shadow. This is an imperative and unless we embrace the necessary work we will be bringing our shadows with us as we replace the old crumbling edifices with our new, or rather we will not be able to pass into a new way of being whilst we are still clinging to our shadow.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As my friend Seb reminded me, the Hubble telescope needs to be spotless to reflect the perfect images we want from deep space and this reflects the spotlessness we have to create in all corners of the deep space within us all, to move forward.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It is my intention to continue through this year without judgement as we attempt to extract ourselves from Europe and watch the USA descend into chaos. I am a Piscean so a little chaos is never bad if we are going to find order from it. Getting angry is ok as long as you transform the energy and do something positive with it.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am very excited to have begun working with the Restorative Justice community. To me this feels like such a positive way to deal with our judgement, our pain and the way we meter out justice. It is such a huge issue in our society.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Finding a way to bridge the divide between the differences in the way we perceive our culture should be is vital. Creating the communication and trust so we don’t view people with different opinions as enemies or lesser than ourselves is a necessary step on our journey towards living in peace and harmony. Who doesn’t wish for that?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This beautiful painting was a birthday card from my sister. Terry, who also created the artwork for my book and it fills me with confidence that we all have the right keys to open our own personal doors to freedom from pain and conflict. If you’re feeling we’ve lost them I would like to say that maybe many have just temporarily mislaid them. I am trusting that they soon will be found as I am ever the optimist.</span></div><br />Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-52510636331639300182016-11-30T03:22:00.000-08:002016-11-30T03:22:36.715-08:00A Split Decision<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ON8veEEYySg/WDgqlJhTb_I/AAAAAAAAAME/q6vs1s5_5KcDM_kswLYfJOJHxAI4pn_BwCLcB/s1600/IMG_1265%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ON8veEEYySg/WDgqlJhTb_I/AAAAAAAAAME/q6vs1s5_5KcDM_kswLYfJOJHxAI4pn_BwCLcB/s320/IMG_1265%2Bcopy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>A Split Decision</b></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">On the 23rd of June 2016 the UK was asked to make a decision on its future. I wrote a blog about it just a few days before in my usual optimistic frame of mind. I voted remain because I believe a united world is where we should be headed. I do, however, understand that although I sense that is where we shall end up, humanity has to go through many teething issues before we choose the simple road. The answer is always simple but when humanity has gone through thousands of years oppression and pain, clarity is not an attribute we would be expected to have gained as a whole. I remain, as I said, optimistic.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When I was able to clear my mind, a few days after the disbelief of what happened had passed, I realised that far more than a simple yes/no vote had occurred. I soon recognised that a huge amount of anger had been unveiled. Having been given the chance to make their feelings known, those that voted as a protest, made it obvious that their anger had always been there. The country was no different to how it was before the referendum but now everyone was aware of it. Bringing this anger out in the open is important as I have been feeling too long that repressed emotions lie at the heart of our country’s issues.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For the last few decades we have, as a nation, been working to remove sexism and racism from our way of being. However, if this only done by passing a few laws and changing the way people speak and behave in public, although many people will choose to change the way they feel towards others, many will just be changing their actions only. If we do not change the way we feel, these negative emotions that are kept repressed and not dealt with or voiced will eventually rise up like the ugly monster we are seeing today. Now it is open season to voice racist remarks. I feel the result of the referendum has now given those who feel they have ‘won’ but who have always felt oppressed - and so naturally transfer that feeling to the other - a sense of righteousness in oppressing those who they feel are outside their sense of 'family'. How long is it going to take before we all realise that we all brothers and sisters and that this understanding is our only way forward to peace?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My first reaction was that this has undone all the years of trying to make this country a more tolerant and open-hearted country. Then I realised that we obviously had never succeeded as this feeling of intolerance has never gone away it has just been covered with a veneer of improved behaviour. So where can we go from here. The small majority of people are speaking out but, however painful it is hear to these remarks, I do not for a moment believe that all those who voted to leave are racist, just as not all those who voted to remain are completely tolerant. No one is immune from feelings of arrogance, intolerance or lack of self-worth to name a few of the emotions that are at play here. There is much work to be done and much to learn. Sadly I feel our country is now going to have to learn the hard way. I find it hard to believe that there is not an option of simply not pressing the Brexit button, as many other countries have done. (Pulling out the ‘but that would be undemocratic’ phrase at this point I find laughable with our Government’s history). But as banks and businesses are already preparing to move out the country and our politicians are still more concerned about their own face than the country’s needs we are all going to have take the brunt in some way or another.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I see every crossroads as an opportunity and although I feel the referendum was perhaps one of the most divisive political moments in our history (other than being taken to war countless times) I also believe we can see this as a real chance to look at our country in a whole new light. Building walls, I believe is the easy way out. There are much better choices to be made, however hard they may seem. This is something for 'the people' to work towards as I can’t see the politicians making any changes. While they still work within their own laws of self-interest and bandy around words such as democracy and transparency we know there is no hope there. We live in a country where democracy has been twisted so that it is meaningless and where lies are a way of life. The combined efforts of the Government, media and the city have left the people so much in the dark as to the real truth I don’t think anyone knows what is true anymore</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sadly, I wonder that perhaps the only way that we can lift our country up to a new way of living is to sink so far into the obscurity a post Brexit world will put us in - a world where all the ‘Great’-ness will be shaken out of the mindset of the British - that the only way forward will be to throw away all the lies and fears, hatred and choose to come together in a way that serves us all, However, contrived that might sound, that is the only right way forward and I am doing everything I can to make that a reality in my world right now.&nbsp;</span></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Got to start somewhere, one step at a time.</span></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-26457483785537321912016-06-20T08:42:00.001-07:002016-06-20T08:42:24.218-07:00A Vote For Life <br /><div align="center" class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 20pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">A Vote for Life<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><br /><div align="center" class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 20pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">&nbsp;</span></o:p></span></b></div><br /><div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>I’m not sure if you were aware but there is about to be a referendum in our country? No, I’m not joking, there are some people who are not aware. Something inside me wants to say good on them. If you can remain that oblivious to the political world that takes some doing. I have been trying to keep my head out of the papers and news channels for so long now but it’s impossible to ignore if you are concerned about the world, the country you live in and the people you share it with. And, of course, voting is so important.</span></span></div><br /><div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>I am concerned with all these things but I try to keep my view point as wide as possible. I am very much part of the ‘in’ campaign because everything that I am working and living for is about love and connection. It is true that the EU is far from perfect but I believe it is easier to make positive changes from within. I know that many feel that because things are not good in the UK, it would be better to leave. But, when you consider all the information we are being fed, whether it is true or not, I don’t believe leaving is the answer. Our issues are of a more internal nature.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>I began to feel that everything was getting very confused. It seemed that every day brought a new viewpoint and the possibility of a change of direction. I felt like I was looking with a magnifying glass to begin with and with each step I took away from the starting point a different image would come into view. I did hear someone give some compelling evidence about some political issue about TTIP and how leaving would help in that</span><span lang="IT" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: IT;"> case. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt;">However, I soon came to the realisation that the minutia, irrespective of how important their place in this huge issue is, cannot take precedence over the whole big picture we are about to paint. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>I feel when it comes down to it there are only two ways of looking at it; those that have love in their hearts and want to make a world that can carry everyone and those that live in a state of fear. These are the people that put out hate campaigns and it is very easy, in these times, to be drawn in. It is important to keep our heads and remember what kind of world we want to create around us. For a hundred years our fore fathers have been fighting against an England that was built for the aristocracy. The Britain that was great trampled all over the world and oppressed its people with our, apparently, better ways of living. As our kingdom shrank, our karma was to receive all these peoples, whose lives we altered in many ways back to their ‘homeland’. In return we have offered a place of refuge with increasing better standards of living. We have improved our racist attitudes our homophobia and most important created an amazing welfare state for all.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>This has all been aided by joining our European neighbours in an attempt to increase the awareness of a greater community that we all can share. We had a huge part in making this happen and it seems madness to think that in such a short time we could be unravelling all the good that we have been building. This unravelling goes back to Thatcher and is still on course but I feel that this referendum is highlighting the whole story in one crazy microcosmic moment. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Getting caught up in the details, I believe, just increases the stress levels. I do think we can accept this whole experience as a gift. I was told when I had an awakening that we would be asked to choose between the light and the shadow. It was also explained that the world would only reach this point when the shadow and the light were equally matched, for it’s only when the scales are perfectly balanced that we can evolve to a better way of living. We seemed to be at that point, as though we are being offered a practice run, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>where the polls were neck and neck, that we experienced, nationally, a great tragedy. The death of Jo Cox and the loss of the amazing work she did and had yet to do, was a defining moment and I hope in time when the grieving has been worked through that it will be seen that she didn’t die in vain. The bigger story offers the view that at that state of balance we had to step back from the campaigning and now it is up to us to vote from the heart as that is the only place we can really know how to feel. Without the lies and statistics it is here that we can rely on a deeper understanding of the whole. It is time to stop thinking about a world as made up of individuals but as a community that has enough to embrace all its inhabitants and then we can start creating a governing state that reflects that. This is our chance to vote for life.</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-9154959540550842522016-04-06T12:52:00.000-07:002016-04-06T12:52:30.019-07:00New Vision<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: center;"><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 20px;">&nbsp;New Vision</b></h2><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W1vjI847odw/VwVeuZTezTI/AAAAAAAAALU/st_vGUXk2pwRpOg1GdViJjQImVyCYE0Cg/s1600/IMG_1044.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W1vjI847odw/VwVeuZTezTI/AAAAAAAAALU/st_vGUXk2pwRpOg1GdViJjQImVyCYE0Cg/s320/IMG_1044.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 20px; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 20px; line-height: normal; min-height: 24px; text-align: center;"><b></b><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 20px; line-height: normal; min-height: 24px; text-align: center;"><b></b><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">My journey to the heart, for those who have been following my blogs and journeys, has been a long one. That, however, is not a bad thing as far as I am concerned. A slow comfortable ride is, for me, always the best way to travel because you get to take in the scenery and really enjoy the whole process in a relaxed and contemplative manner. Anything I can do that brings me in to my body rather than into my head, or out of my body, I see as a step in the right direction.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">As a musician, I have always been more interested in the aural responses in life rather than the visual. This, I feel, has kind of put me at odds with the rest of the world. Technology has highlighted this very clearly. If we look at our mobile phones every aspect involving the eye has got higher and higher in its specifications. Our cameras have more and more pixels, more than my ageing eyes would be able to notice as things become ever more blurry for me. On the other side, our music has become more and more squashed and the bandwidth narrower and narrower so the quality is hardly worth bothering with unless you’re prepared to use high-quality streaming in exchange for storage. I would go for that every time. If we look at our meeting places, in our bars, cafes etc., the decor has slowly been changing. Before we had comfortable soft furnishings that soak up the sound and make the room relaxed and easy to talk and hear what is going on. Now the carpets have been replaced with bare floors the furniture has lost the cushioning and every surface is a hard one. The sound clatters around like a ping pong ball and everyone has to speak louder and louder to be heard, creating a stressful and very unrelaxing atmosphere.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">Why is this? About ten years ago I read two books by </span>Joachim- Ernst Berendt<b> </b>called <i>The World is Sound Nada Brahma and The Third Ear, on Listening to the World </i>that<i> </i>explained this for me. Berebndt explains that the eye works with the masculine energy. It is the creative light that travels in a straight line from the eye out to the exterior world. From this we have created television and computers etc which takes ourselves out of our own ability to create and imagine and replaces it with outside images. As our journey into the left, masculine part of our brain pushes us to an out of kilter state, the separation from ourselves and each other grows year on year. The ear, conversely is the least understood part of the body. The cochlea is spiral in shape and reflects the life force that is all around us. It works with the fibonacci series, a mathematical formula, from which all life grows from leaves to trees to our bodies to galaxies. This is the feminine aspect of ourselves and brings us into our inner world. The spiral energy takes us from the third dimension in which we reside and spirals up through the sound, through the harmonics which are held within each note and raises our energy into the higher dimensions.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">It is in this place that we find who we truly are and here we can find peace. To close down this aspect of ourselves goes against our nature and creates a society of angry and unhappy people. I keep coming back to the toad in the boiling water analogy but only because it is so true. (For those who haven’t heard it, it is the scenario where if you put a toad in boiling water it will immediately jump out. If you put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat it will sit there slowly adjusting to the increase in temperature until it dies. So far I believe we are that toad still happy to adjust to the worsening circumstances in which we allow ourselves to be in.) So I ask at what point are we going to decide that the heat is unbearable and make the necessary changes to choose to leap out of the boiling water. I know we have the ability we just need the desire and the awareness that things need and can change. If we continue to buy into what we are continually being sold, things which truly do not serve us, that make our traumatised egos feel better but our souls weep, will we ever change? I believe so.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">While so many are blind to this story (and of course it is only my story, well not just mine) I am ever hopeful that the blindness will somehow shift to a state of inner vision. This is where the truth can be found and I find it fascinating how the irony is playing itself out here.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">Just the other day I decided to turn on the television; a rare occurrence in my house and went to the Ted Talks channel. I was just looking for some inspiration and came across a talk by a scientist who was speaking on behalf of the people who found the gravity wave. Apparently a scientist, 40 years ago, had the foresight to believe this could be achieved and managed to get the project funded all that time ago. It took till last September for the machine to be turned on and within weeks, I believe, they got their first result. How amazing is that.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">What was more amazing for me, and for them of course, is that they realised that they would never be able to see this event, however amazing their technology was, as they understood that that the cameras and our eyes are too limited. Firstly there is simply too much in the way between us and the event and secondly they know that the eye is far inferior to the ear as we can only see about ten percentage compared to what we can hear. So when the result came through it was of course as in an aural not a visual form. It sounded much like a whoop! I found this very amusing and very beautiful as indeed did the scientist and it showed me that, I believe, we are on our way home. We’ve a long way yet to go but I feel these are the first signs of our scientists recognising the importance of the ear over the eye and therefore the heart over the head.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">I am doing my best to listen more and rely less on my sight. When my partner took this picture of me last month, neither of us knew why we took it and no one offered us any insight. But there was the answer right in front of me. I am proposing an enquiry into the world where our ears become king rather than our eyes; where we listen first and judge second. The eye has so much room for error, (optical illusions are a classic case here; we have no phases like this for our ears) yet our ears are far more accurate and sensitive.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">I am working on a year-long of course of meditations and today’s is based on the idea that everything we see is only a reflection, this is a known truth that when we look at something we are only seeing the light and colours in reflection. What I hadn’t thought of before today is that it is only a reflection of our own inner light.&nbsp;Could this help us to see more clearly?</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">I would like to leave you with that insight. Any reflections on that would be gratefully received.</div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-88624325414763239832016-03-17T04:03:00.001-07:002016-03-17T04:04:42.249-07:00The Time of Reckoning<h2 style="text-align: center;">The Time of Reckoning</h2><div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">2016, what a year it’s been and Spring is only just raising its head. I’m calling it the year of reckoning though we probably could have called any of the past few years by the same name. But this really is the one. If we haven’t sorted any outstanding issues already now is the time.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">I know I still have many skeletons in my closet, who can honestly say otherwise. Speaking and hearing my truth is probably the answer to most my issues though I know I can’t even get close until I start feeling my truth. Layer upon layer of life’s little challenges mean that there are many walls that I have put up between me and my real self to deal with my sense of separation with spirit. Neale Donald Walsh put it very clearly in his book ‘Communion With God’ where he explains the difference between our cultural understanding of a religious god and a spiritual one. As we are told through our religious stories that god is separate from us we deal with that in different ways. With the feeling of loss, fear and need to be able to return home, the possibility of failure leads to much judgement and pain. With these negative feelings we put up barriers between our selves and our heart as all feelings are too challenging and we gradually lose sense of our truth, who we really are. The painful illusion that we bring into being as we close down our powerful and beautiful being and replace it with a version of the ego completely detached from spirit, this dulled down lesser version ourselves, creates a world of lost souls.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">So how to get back to where I know I want to be. A return to the heart means a journey back to the body, to the senses. I know I have been stuck in my head for so long and though I have talking about the journey to the heart for many years now, the journey is slow. I know also that that is not a bad thing. I have always said my journey is a slow steady incline whereas I see so many others having huge breakthroughs and epiphanies and try not to be envious of their huge leaps forward.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">As the end of the year brought a few emotional releases and that led to me damaging my back and causing an inch and a half pelvic drop, I knew that this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Consequently, I enjoyed a few bedridden weeks to contemplate my navel. Removing the tension that I was holding in my root chakra, or rather my ass, to be blunt, was necessary before I could get to the core of my issue. Two months later and a book falls into my hands whilst visiting the lovely town of Hay-on-Wye. The many books shops stuffed to bursting with books and how is it the right one just falls off the shelf? I bought it because I thought it would help me as I am at the point of trying to lay out my book and do as much pre-publishing work as I can before it goes to print. Little did I know it would offer far more than technical help.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">It was Brandon Bays “The Journey”; even the title was similar. I was looking on the astrology shelf to see how broad that section would go and if my book would fit. To be honest I think it had been moved to the wrong section as it had no astrological connections at all. Funny how these things come about.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">In the book she talks about healing her beachball sized tumour and then how she goes on to create a healing method for all. It is the most powerful journey and an extremely important healing tool and the sooner we learn to recognise its truth as a culture we will all benefit.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">She goes on to teach people how to release their pain, pain that they have often been holding on to since childhood and release symptoms both physical and emotional in the most profound way.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">This book became the subject of many conversations and one of the most profound was when discussing the decline of our National Health Service with my parents and how our government was intent on breaking it up. When my father asked if, in the future if our government has completely dismantled it, we were capable of recreating it in the same way we had brought it to life in the first place, I replied that I didn’t think we had the post-war blitz spirit necessary to want to spend that amount of money and also that medicines and operations are now so expensive it is almost impossible with the budget our government puts aside. This was my third dimensional head speaking.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">Then I thought maybe this is the blessing. Maybe as we begin to lose the NHS we will, out of desperation, turn to alternatives such as Brandon Bays healing methods and realise that there is a better a way; a way that doesn’t involve going under the knife or filling our bodies with terrible poisons labelled ‘medicine’. I realised that we will soon look back at this era as a truly dark age and that the answer is actually already here if enough people are ready to trust themselves and stop putting their power into the those that wield it.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">We have dumbed down our energy for too long and now we are being asked to reawaken and shine and know that we are all self-healing beings and if we are willing to step into our feeling senses, into our bodies and get out of our heads, all the answers are there.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">I know I need help getting there, into my body, so I can listen to it and hear its wisdom. But I also know that as I already know what I am hoping for and desire it, the end is in sight. I also know that as I journey through this work there are many way ahead of me and many following close behind.&nbsp;</div></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-17517575840849935642016-01-29T03:58:00.000-08:002016-01-29T03:58:35.044-08:00The Problem Of Time<h2 style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XyPkqvCIu3I/VqtOkTfM06I/AAAAAAAAALE/9Rx4pqrz6VU/s1600/astrology-time-12149713.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XyPkqvCIu3I/VqtOkTfM06I/AAAAAAAAALE/9Rx4pqrz6VU/s400/astrology-time-12149713.jpg" /></a></b></h2><div><blockquote id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8372" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; margin: 1em;" type="cite"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8371"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8370" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif;"><div class="yiv2164214688yahoo_quoted" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8369"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8368"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8367" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;"><div class="yiv2164214688y_msg_container" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8366"><div id="yiv2164214688"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8365"><blockquote class="yiv2164214688iosymail" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8364" style="margin: 1em;"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Problem of Time &nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: small;">&nbsp;</span></h2></blockquote></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><blockquote id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8372" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 1em;" type="cite"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8371"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8370" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><div class="yiv2164214688yahoo_quoted" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8369"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8368"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8367" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;"><div class="yiv2164214688y_msg_container" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8366"><div id="yiv2164214688"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8365"><blockquote class="yiv2164214688iosymail" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1454066705095_8364" style="margin: 1em;"><h3 style="text-align: center;">Weaving the classical physics and quantum world together&nbsp;</h3><div class="yiv2164214688msgSandbox" id="yiv2164214688msgSandbox_ALsIDNkAAB6IVp2F1MQS68OSyHzI_TEXT" style="padding: 1.5em 0.5em 0.5em 1.2em; word-wrap: break-word;">On reading Greg Braden's amazing book 'Fractal Time' he states that scientists have reached a sticking point they are calling 'the problem of time'. It set me to thinking.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />As I understand it, if time is relative then our relationship with it is the imperative. The problem is that we can only view time from our perspective. We have to learn to look as if we are outside the box.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />In a talk I give I compare the Russian Doll model to the idea that all the beings in our universe exist like this within the Fibonacci mathematical model. This I know is not new. I express the idea that each body from an atom to the universe itself are all just mini dimensional versions of our Universe. I remember one gentleman afterwards being quite upset and tried to explain to me that a cell was not at all comparable to the solar system as I had implied. He told me that electrons do not travel around the nucleus in the same way the planets go round a sun.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />I wanted to question this but couldn't find the words. I needed to sleep on it as all Pisceans know (this talk had an astrological theme which always upsets scientifically orientated people). After some thought I began to query whether the random movement of the electrons around a nucleus were possibly only apparently random to us because being so small and so fast we couldn't actually track the movement of the electrons. Just as when we move something fast, like wagging a pencil between our fingers, our eyes only pick up a single image out of the blur. Maybe if we could slow the movement of an atom down and increase the size to that of a solar system then it would travel at a speed our eyes could handle because it's nearer to our own sphere of existence, now that we have computers that can track these large scale movements. Similarly if we sized down a solar system to mirror that of an atom then maybe the planets too would seem to appear in random places or in two at the same time. It is all relative and it is all relative to us. Surely that is the whole crux of the new science we are having to embrace: the new laws of relativity.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />I think this can also be seen on much closer sections of the dimensional spectrum, if we choose to see it as a spectrum, which works for me with most ideas I explore. If we contemplate the idea that as time is inseparable from space so that it should only be called 'spacetime' then objects of a slightly different size will also work within a slightly different time frame. When I read A T Mann's 'The Divine Life' He explains it as if we work on a varying spectrum of frames per second. So a moth that has a life span of one of our days would experience many more frames per second in the their body pulses, heart beat, cell rejuvenation and of course visually, literally, how many frames per second it would see, than us. The opposite would be true of an animal such as a tortoise. This is why when we see a bird fly past the bonnet of our car and we feel we have experienced a near miss situation, the bird, working on a much faster time frame than us, has sailed through the gap thinking it had as much time as if we were on a boat sailing through a swing bridge. It's all relative and the sooner we grasp this the quicker we can move on with our understanding of time and its so called problem.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />I find it funny that whenever we humans discuss great ideas we always forget to put ourselves in the middle of it. Surely this is the only place in the physical world we can see the world from. But whether it is ecology - I am still waiting for the term to become 'our environment' rather than 'the environment' so that people can start to understand the importance of our part in our responsibility here on this beautiful Earth - or science the lofty view of the Aquarian style average scientist always forgets that it is impossible to experience the world in any way except through themselves.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />So when we contemplate the weird bendiness of time surely we have to put ourselves in the centre again.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />When we watch our clock ticking away on our phones or in our cars it seems like it is a constant, an immoveable force that we have created out of own amazing logical, systematic calibration of time.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />However, when I get in a car and plan to arrive at a certain time, even though I know it is probably an impossibility, whether it be too long or too short, it all to often makes me turn into the drive or where ever I am arriving just as the clock ticks onto the time I'd set in my mind. How can this be?&nbsp;<br clear="none" />One classic time was when leaving London late after the theatre, with a group of friends, to return to Somerset I had said in my mind and possibly to my partner who was asking when he should expect me, that we should be home at 2am. I was probably over estimating it so he shouldn't worry if we were late and allowing for things that often crop up, late after show drinks, getting lost, you know the kind of things you don't plan for. Well, we actually left early and we should have been home by 1am as traffic through London was quiet at that time, which isn't always the way but this time it was.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />We were making good head way and the mood was light. We left the M25 and as we went to turn off to the M3 the exit was closed, the motorway was shut. This seemed bizarre. We somehow had to turn back on ourselves and make our way to the M4, not a terrible detour but not great either. We'd thought we'd turn off at Chippenham and not lose too much time. After half an hour down the motorway we saw a big sign 'M4 shut junctions 12-14'. This was getting outrageous why would two motorways be completely shut at certain points, well, more importantly the points we wanted to use. So we turned off at junction 14 and our poor driver who was tiring by now had to drive down a whole sequence of B roads to try and get back to the M3. We were hoping that this far down it would be open by now. Half an hour later and time is ticking on, we reach the M3. It is open, thank the Lord and on we go. By now, I Spy and any other silly games we can remember are brought out to keep our spirits up and our driver awake. As we begin the home stretch and turn to the A303 which was always our invented route the cones started to multiply, I've never seen so many and again we soon realised that this was because the entire road had been shut down. Our last leg was being denied us and another major road on our route was completely closed. Exasperated, we made our detours and after a while someone asked what the time was. I began to see a significance. It was 1.40 and we were about 20 minutes from home. My good old clock setting mechanism had pulled rank and the Universe had colluded to get me home at the time I had requested.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />Now I can hear you laugh and so did my passengers when I begged forgiveness that I had made all this happen (in a light-hearted funny way of course) but I cannot recount without completely boring you how many times things like this have happened to me. This was just one of the more outlandish. Well I mean, 3 major roads just to get my physical world and my world of intention to collide is quite a feat to manifest but isn't that what the quantum world is helping us to understand: that our thoughts create the world. The world is how it is because we are not the observers but the participators.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />So, does time move? Yes if course it does, it bends. That's nothing new. But what I'm trying to show is that we don't see the time bending because firstly we are part of the bending so can't see it. But also the increments of movement, like those of an atom, are too small for us to observe. We can watch the second hand tick we we can't feel the minute bending of time that we create because it's too small, literally, on a different dimension from us.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />The bottom line is of course that time doesn't exist. It exists only as part of our experience of life in the third dimension as we travel through spacetime in our projected expanding experience of the Big Bang. It's real to us because our experience of it makes it so and that is real enough. However, when we learn to expand our consciousness out of our limited physical realms, like our ancients did, then our conceptual understanding of the universe will grow many fold and start to resemble the understanding that our ancients had and many indigenous communities still hold. How else did we understand the layout of our Solar System to invent the ancient wisdom of Astrology. How else could we understand the deeper aspects and wisdoms of our universe, if man had not been able to go beyond the physical world and see the it from beyond the limits of our human perspective: understandings that our scientists are only just beginning to see themselves.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />I believe science is slowly realising the huge potential that we have at our fingertips if we go beyond the fear of the unknown and dive in. Then we will realise that there is no problem with time, because time will disappear as something to be tied down and will be allowed to move and change in much the same way we can change our whole world if we choose to.&nbsp;<br clear="none" />Our thought waves are the things that are really real and they shape and form our world and our movement within it. So let's decide to use those thoughts in a positive way and see what kind of reality we can truly create. I don't want to stress the urgency in this because, of course, there is no time to lose.</div></blockquote></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-31085648524499522332015-11-30T08:39:00.003-08:002015-11-30T08:39:50.374-08:00Lighting A Candle For Peace <h2></h2><h2 style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;Lighting A Candle For Peace &nbsp;</h2><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yeENWCrbqA0/Vlx7E6miyeI/AAAAAAAAAKw/Whx8CxwGD6M/s1600/iStock_000012660966XSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yeENWCrbqA0/Vlx7E6miyeI/AAAAAAAAAKw/Whx8CxwGD6M/s320/iStock_000012660966XSmall.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">&nbsp;</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">So, as we are heading towards the end of the year and Christmas is nigh what are our hopes and dreams? Who would have thought it would be war? Sadly the truth is that if that is what we have collectively created then that’s what we have been collectively wishing for.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">&nbsp; </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Although this is clearly very sad, acceptance is the first step towards change and I have come to learn to accept the journey we are on.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">Any of you who have come across my Keys to the Golden City project know that the number 12 is very important to me for many reasons. It feels ironic that I only have to look back 12 years to find myself in exactly the same position that I am now only hopefully slightly wiser to the story we are creating.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">After years of not feeling the urge to march, especially after the grimness of the poll tax march in 1990, in 2003 I took to the streets again, terrified that the government (I had ironically voted for) had no idea of what they were stirring up. It’s taken until now for Blair to admit that he was wrong and that the war created the new Islamic State and the ironies continue because it was he who called those that marched against the war ‘naive’. Well, the mirror always shows the truth revealing the leaders to be the ones who were naive.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">Now, it seems that just as our leaders of only 12 years ago are beginning to understand the fire they have been playing with and apologising for it, the next generation of politicians are already put their hands to their ears and are refusing to listen to those that made the mistakes before them, thinking they know better.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">Until we realise that we are all victims here, until we realise that blame has no place in this story, because once you begin playing that game you find yourself right in the firing line.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">We are a people at war with ourselves and we continually turn that inner conflict into sibling rivalry. Seeing ourselves in our brother, the Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmail we then play that conflict out with our neighbours, and this was stated so clearly by the Dalai Lama when asked why he didn’t fight back against the Chinese.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(20, 25, 35); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #141923; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;">He was quoted as saying </span><i>"Well, war is obsolete, you know." Then, after a few moments, his face grave, he said, "Of course the mind can rationalise fighting back ... but the heart, the heart would never understand. Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you."</i></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(20, 25, 35); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #141923; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">The idea that believing in peace is naive, as I have often been told, fascinates me as does the idea of love. To my mind there is absolutely no other way of being, no other solution. The fact that most people find this impossible is a small stumbling block that I refuse to let get in my way. The fact that war not only fails to solve any problems but as in most cases and especially this one, hugely adds to them doesn’t seem to stop people thinking it’s the only way. In a society that prides itself on logic I remain constantly baffled. I, on the other hand, do not believe in logic and war proves its downfalls time and time again. This is probably best left for another blog but I will just say that Edward De Bono’s lateral thinking ideas beats logic any day.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(20, 25, 35); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #141923; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">I would like to illustrate my thoughts with a little story, a true story, well, true as I saw it.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(20, 25, 35); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #141923; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">I grew up in Bristol and for most of my young childhood Bristol suffered from conflict between its black community and the police as did most cities in Britain. This climaxed in 1981 with the first of the country’s race riots in St Pauls. As the riots beaconed around the country, five years later it came full circle back to Bristol. By the nineties, after nearly two decades of a conservative government, the country was struggling with growing tensions between rich and poor and all the problems that brings and Bristol, which is essential quite a gentle, artistic city began being visited by the North, particularly the gangs from Manchester and then closely followed by the Yardies, the hard drug runners from Jamaica. Many of these brought guns with them and a level of violence the Bristolians simply weren’t prepared for and didn’t want. What followed was an amazing thing. Suddenly the enemy at home seemed far less like an enemy when these outsiders came to stir things up. The only solution was to work together and remove the common enemy. Now this is not a new story, but the oldies are always the goodies and the black community and the police combined forces and got rid of the scary invaders. When they were gone all that was left was relative harmony. (I don’t want to imply that there are no race issues in Bristol, just that things were greatly improved. We are still a people in conflict after all). The gift had been received.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(20, 25, 35); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #141923; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">I believe that when we understand that the West has been responsible in many ways for creating the unrest in the Middle East, but that the responsibility lies with the other side too and that this goes back millennia, we can see that the IS is our gift. As the brothers, Isaac and Ismail have played out their sibling rivalry through the centuries, we now have an opportunity to join forces to remove the common enemy, remembering that this common enemy, IS, is just the mirror of our deepest fear and anger. Just as we created it, it is up to us to learn to love and forgive ourselves and therefore remove this enemy, the enemy within that has been manifested without.&nbsp;</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(20, 25, 35); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #141923; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">I believe, guns simply add to the pain and anger and with each bomb that is dropped we fuel the fire as an endless spring of angry muslims are radicalised by our actions and join the rivers that flow into the ocean in the Middle East. It is simple cause and effect, as we continue to bomb the Middle East, young Muslims will be drawn to continue to join up. How long are we prepared to keep this endless, terrible cycle alive?</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(20, 25, 35); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #141923; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">It is the coming together which is the gift and if we use the force of love to unite our nations that have long been in conflict, we will discover it is far more powerful than any guns or bombs could possibly be. If we all woke up tomorrow with peace in our hearts this story would be an irrelevance. With peace in our hearts the enemy and conflict within would disappear and in that instance so would the illusion that we have physical enemies.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(20, 25, 35); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #141923; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">Peace be with you.</div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-20892621029011523032015-08-31T12:54:00.000-07:002015-08-31T12:54:50.744-07:00The Pantomime of Politics<h2 style="text-align: center;">The Pantomime of Politics</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8UwKNPVaR74/VeIl_ccMrpI/AAAAAAAAAKc/q7ysRSrLqvA/s1600/3c472c1b02689e78d9ba244eb46211b5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8UwKNPVaR74/VeIl_ccMrpI/AAAAAAAAAKc/q7ysRSrLqvA/s1600/3c472c1b02689e78d9ba244eb46211b5.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What has happened to our politics? I know it’s always been a farce but these days it seems beyond ridiculous. I’m trying to get my head around it now but we all know how incredibly complicated it is.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Science and quantum physics tells us that everything is connected and although it appears we are separate, that is the illusion and we are in fact one body interacting like individual cells in the body of the human race.</span></div><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Just like the atomic structure of the universe, energy wants to find a state of balance. All chemical elements in our universe try to move to the middle ground so, for instance, an element that has a low atomic number is very unstable (out on the limb of our periodic table) will easily bond with another to form more complex structure and so become more stable. Whereas the elements with high atomic numbers such as uranium, which are also unstable being out on the opposite limb of the table, are trying to break down in order to reach that state of stability and balance which is held by elements such as lead with elemental numbers holding the middle ground. And so our universal order adheres to this way of working, on a general level. Of course there are always exceptions but humans, en masse, do not tend to be exceptional beings as yet, only as&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px;">individuals</span><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">. I do, however, hold the belief that we could be.</span></span><br /> <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We are at the moment at the very unstable situation of some humans having very high numerical numbers attached to them and some very low. This of course creates instability and those with any view of the bigger picture of the race as a whole can see that.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What stops us from attempting to reach a place of stability is fear, fear of our potential, I believe.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What would happen if everyone had enough to eat and a roof over their heads and enough money to get by. What indeed. The fact is there actually is enough for everyone but we have a sickness in our society. It starts with fear and ends with greed and addiction.&nbsp; It is the addiction to money, hoarding great sums of it, that means many others do not have enough to live.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">You would think that those with not enough to get by, would want to vote for a political party that helps those with little. You might also think, as there are so many with not enough and only a few with far too much, how is it that the party that only helps those with far too much continually gets into power.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is the state of our world party politics and I am trying not to be awe of those that have continued to make it stay this way for so long. You have to hand it to them, to keep people in the dark for so long takes power, energy, manipulation and most of all fear. Of course these all need money too. It is an amazing feat and of course it is an insanity. However, most of the population are too caught up in their own fear of either losing their hoards or trying to keep their heads above water to see what is really going on to think of choosing a better way. That is, of course, the crux of it. While most people are drowning in the insanity of the merry-go-round of our society’s needs only a few have the ability to raise their heads enough to see what is really happening. It takes a broad minded attitude to be able to see a world that can be for the good of all and I feel, we are still very much in the minority with those who wish to conserve (dictionary meaning: to hoard, store up) the old way. What does it mean to be conservative, dictionary meaning is: to be conventional, die-hard, guarded and reactionary. Not good attributes to lead our world, or to be led, into a free and beautiful state of balance and harmony.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Once you step off the merry-go-round all becomes clear, but of course not in a good way.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Recently we have seen that Kids Company, an amazing project that created a safe haven for thousands of our youths in need, has been shut down for the sake of a few million and on the other side I remember banks being upheld by billions. Are we a society that wants to be seen to be looking after corruption in our banks or the young people who are the consequence of this corruption. What is this saying to our young? I sense that even the austere Victorians took better care of Barnados than we are of its off spring, Kids Company. Whatever problems the company encountered, and I’m sure there were many, surely we owe the children a better outcome.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I left the Labour party after they stopped being a Labour party about a decade ago though&nbsp; still dream of the party getting back to its purpose of serving the people and not the corporations.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now I am outside of it and watching the craziness of fear at work as so many try to stop the left becoming left again. I am saddened and bemused. I am holding on to faith and wanting to believe that the new generation will bring us back to our senses, too young to have a huge vested interest in a lot of material wealth as yet, I hold to the idea that they will not be dragged fully into the madness. As we head towards the party leadership votes, the media tells us that some people are being prevented from joining because of their, so called, subversive ideals, being too left wing and others are joining the Labour party, as conservatives, to try and sabotage the outcome by voting for the left wing politician, thinking they will create a party too left wing to get voted in. This is debatable, I’m hoping people are nearly ready if the right party was in place to vote for. But either way, the concept of actually doing this leaves me flabbergasted. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As I remember not to believe a word I hear from the media I soon hear a story that some young conservatives really are doing this crazy thing. The problem is that, to me, they are actually voting for sense, the irony is not lost on me. Then as we hear that these saboteurs, who are voting for the left are being weeded out we all cheer for the upholding of justice but in fact as the true left-wingers are still being excluded form voting the right wing has won again.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I watch as the house of cards fall again.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I keep saying it obviously has to get really bad before people fall into such chaos that they will stop and see what is really happening. Those of us in the middle, like standing on the middle of a see-saw need to just hold onto our sanity.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">&nbsp;</span></div></div><br />Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-37524929554671764432015-06-17T12:51:00.000-07:002015-06-17T12:51:06.926-07:00A Play For Freedom<h2 style="text-align: center;">A Play For Freedom</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z1MVVQpELfc/VYHMpDws8XI/AAAAAAAAAKI/XOxV9IOrbAc/s1600/8680936864_84b7fbd61a_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z1MVVQpELfc/VYHMpDws8XI/AAAAAAAAAKI/XOxV9IOrbAc/s320/8680936864_84b7fbd61a_k.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For the last year or so I have been on a little journey. If you know my writing or my talks, you’ll know I love journeys! Well this one hasn’t taken me much further than the limits of my new homestead, the wonderful Somerset town of Frome.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A few months after moving to Frome I joined the Frome Friends of Palestine (FFoP) and if anyone read my blog following the Gaza march in London you’ll have an idea of how much this has drawn me in and awakened me to the traumas the people of Palestine are suffering under the duress of Israeli governmental law. It is a complex and distressing situation especially for Jews around the world who are not at all connected to this situation but are, by their very nature of being Jewish, feeling either upset or caught up in the fear mongering of Israeli propaganda. It’s this imbalance that I am trying to reconcile.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After the summer, the FFoP embarked on a grand project to help bring the Freedom Theatre of Jenin, in the West Bank, to Frome. The theatre company had written ‘The Siege’ - set in 2002, during the Second Intifada, inside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem - especially for this tour. We were to be one of 12 destinations on their first ever UK tour and I believe we were the only amateur group acting in conjunction with our local theatre, the Merlin. Although I have never been drawn to the fundraising or organizing side of the Arts I thought it might do me good to join the core group and get really involved.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As you can imagine, what happened was way out of my expectations. Firstly, I had to remember that there were many other factors at play here and the whole story will form the main thrust of the book I am writing. But for now I will try to give an overview of the whole nine month period to attempt to make sense of it all.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">During the summer I had been lent a DVD, called the ‘Two-Sided Story,’ set in a reconciliation centre in Israel. In September I joined some friends in a new, beautiful meditation group led by my wonderful friend and healer, Louise Chalice and she introduced us to a mantra that worked with your creative fire. At the same time, a teacher at the school I work in told the staff there that she was going to Palestine in the Autumn half term with her women’s football team. She wasn’t going to say anything at first about the trip as she didn’t want to worry her colleagues but she decided to speak up after all my ‘harping’ on about the work I was doing with the FFoP. The first day I saw her after her trip I quizzed her about her time there and she had some very moving stories which of course didn’t surprise me. When she finished talking it came to me to tell her of an image I had been carrying in my head for the last few weeks or so but hadn’t spoken of before. I told her the image and then flippantly said ‘it could be a play, couldn’t it!’</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now, I have already written a book, which is simply me regurgitating my stories, but I have never written a play. However, the following morning I awoke with scenes literally playing in my head. So much so that I had to reach for my iPod, as I have done before, and speak the words into it before I forgot the intricacies of what was being uttered. It was a very busy time for me as I had a gig the following week with a new music venture and also had a great deal of family upset going on but this play was waiting for nothing or no one. In ten days the whole play was written. I did not have to make notes or plans, the structure made itself clear to me as I wrote it and I kept waking with scenes in my head until it was finished. I can’t tell you how exciting it was and I knew it was inspired by the new mantra and the DVD I had watched and the image in my head and everything that was going on for me with the FFoP and the Freedom Theatre. It was a cultural bombardment!&nbsp; &nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Then after this huge gift, I found I was also surrounded by all the people I needed to help me clarify and correct my mistakes and lack of knowledge in this area. I can’t tell you how amazing and profound this felt. It began with my neighbour whom I knew was a first Nation Canadian actress, she then reminded me, that was her mother’s side. Her father was Israeli and had worked in a peace and reconciliation centre (which you may have already guessed is the setting for my play) for a year and she had visited him there. Again that beautiful warm glow when the synchronities arise and you know that the Universe is playing with you makes all the craziness worthwhile.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As I looked back to see how I had reached this point I began to see how it had actually started way back before all of this. About 15 years, I participated in a meditation on the Middle East, again at Louise’s house and when I went to sleep I remember asking that if there was anything I could do I would be glad to be of service in this area. Ask and you shall receive I hear resounding in my ears.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As I worked with bringing the Palestinian theatre company to Frome and at the same time worked on putting on my play, the two worked beautifully in conjunction with each other and were both staged, though mine was just a script-in-hand rehearsed reading, within two weeks of each other.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Receiving the Freedom Theatre from Jenin in the middle of their visit to the UK was fantastic, knowing that we had played a part in raising the money and organising all the logistics for their time here so that they could put Frome on their tour schedule. They were, of course, an amazing group of people and their production was very inspiring. As the play began I was continually aware that this company has been born out of a refugee camp where resistance is an everyday part of life and each of the actors had their own story to tell.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">From the start, as they spoke in Arabic and the surtitle machine was way above their heads, it meant that my eyes were constantly being taken away from the action so my heart remained a little separate. However, what made it difficult to stay disconnected was that they used real film footage projected on to the walls of the church for the events that were occurring outside. It was as the story drew to an end and outside pressure from their own side was entreating them to surrender as they were not the only ones under siege, that the conflict started to ignite between the characters. The moment when one soldier realised he would have to leave his fiancee and homeland for a life in exile and kissed the holy ground, I let go of the translating machine and arrived back in my heart. The complexity of their plight and injustices was so powerful that as the play came to its end and the real footage of the men surrendering was projected onto the church walls I could do nothing but weep.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To me their message was clear: they had made the call, how are we going to answer it?</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Up until now I have always found myself left with those feelings of helplessness and guilt. Now I feel a shift.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Although I have no idea how far my play will move beyond the boundaries of this beautiful town I am hoping that it will be my peace offering, my ‘play’ for freedom. It feels only right that I should do whatever I can to honour all of this and I will continue to do so until it has run its course.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My play is called “Return to the Golden City’ and poses a question to the audience: are you ready to move to a place of forgiveness and return to your Golden City, your own truly open heart? The mechanics of the play, which came through me but not from me, I feel, offer a chance to see things in a way that is not often shown and I hope will bring the transformation that is so needed in our hearts.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">If you are willing to step out of your anger and forgive on all levels then you are literally saving your soul. In Schindler’s List he is told a quote from the Talmud "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I believe we can all do this one by one and I hope you will be willing to join me.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9209604313315250611.post-38801754555303343242015-05-04T14:46:00.000-07:002015-05-04T14:46:27.706-07:00A Vote from the Heart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lIiEjzTJxos/VUfnSXDhzjI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/SkpEM_5tsOk/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lIiEjzTJxos/VUfnSXDhzjI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/SkpEM_5tsOk/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a><b style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;">&nbsp;A Vote from the Heart.</b></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Who would have thought it: that politics could change so rapidly in so short a time. Well may be nothing’s changed on the surface but underneath it all there are rumblings, of that I am sure.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I feel like I’ve been on a roller coaster since the end of 2013 when Russell Brand was interviewed by Paxman and new possibilities started bouncing around in my head. A dream I have had since I was about 15 began looking like it had roots and may be not just roots but green shoots.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Change is really an imperative and although part of me is worried that we will miss the boat the rest of me knows that the Earth is making a evolutionary shift and we are a part of that shift. It would be impossible for one to leap without the other, however, we do have a choice as to how we make that leap: we can choose a smooth ride or a bumpy one. I know which I’d prefer.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Politics has always interested me but I never really got myself involved other than the odd discussion and voting. Now I have become as fully politicised as I can handle! I have, for the first time, joined a party, and never have I felt so positive about the growth of a new movement. Knowing that revolution is rarely a good thing, evolution has to be the way forward. The growth of the Green Party over the last few decades and now in the last few months, seems as perfect, for me, as the early stages of growth of any living being could be: slow, sure and steadfast.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ultimately I would call myself an anarchist in the truest sense of the word, believing that when people understand themselves fully and know that what is best for them is also best for everyone, we will come to a place where we will be totally self-governing. I also understand that it feels like it will take a long time for humans to arrive this point, may be centuries. But at the same time I also feel that once the idea takes hold and a few people truly get it, like the hundred monkeys theory, we will all get it and just maybe that’s not as far as away as we think. I always believe in being an optimist but in the interim we need a positive direction.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The quantum scientists are saying that the world we create in our imagination becomes our reality, that is fact and we can no longer see our existence here in this world as mere observers. It is now understood that our presence has a direct effect on our environment. So it is up to us. What kind of world do we want to live in for ourselves and create for our children? Our world of disappearing habitats, growing corruption and poverty in mind and body is a direct response to the belief that we think we cannot have better. That is an old-school belief system hard wired into us with generations looking back and seeing how things never seem to get better but not understanding that it takes a leap of faith to choose to make the change.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My mother told me she is a realist so she is voting Labour. And I agreed with her, she is a realist, she is continually creating her own reality and her reality is one where she believes we do not deserve better than what we have now. I told her that some of us have to dare to dream, to want to bring into being the chance of a reality where everyone has their basic needs met and that that is not impossible, but can be a reality if we dare to choose it.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This week is not going to see any changes on the surface. We are going to end up with a Labour or a Conservative government. I am very excited about what cocktail we might end up with, though we may just plump for the bumpy ride and get a Conservative government. I understand that my actions might help create that catastrophe but where I live there is no chance of a Labour candidate getting in and it is anyone’s guess between Conservative, Lib Dem or Green. However, I have elected to vote with my heart for the Green Party, as for me, tactical voting belongs to history and old realities. If you walk around my town centre the only posters you’ll see are green ones and it feels like a huge majority of the heart of the town has come together in this way. It’s a very amazing feeling and although it’s only a start I feel like the green shoots are showing that we are choosing a better way. The more people see that others are making that choice the more they’ll feel confident to join in the movement back to our hearts.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It may take years, it may take generations but to know that I am a part of making this new heart led community grow fills me with joy. Join me on thursday and vote with your heart.</span></div><br />Vicki Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12084566948454372988noreply@blogger.com0